Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament
by xoverlover
Summary: Character-driven. YJ Anon Prompt. The team goes in Harry's fourth year to be bodyguards for the Triwizard Cup. They're from a school of "alternative magic" and have to pretend to actually compete so they aren't caught.
1. The Five Champions

_This is another fill fic for a prompt in the anon young justice meme. htt p: / yj-anon-meme. livejournal. com/ 5067. html? view=15715019 #t15715019_

_"So this is yet another Harry Potter crossover, except this time the team goes in Harry's forth year to be bodyguards for the Triwizard Cup. They're from a school of "alternative magic" and have to pretend to actually compete so they aren't caught. I mean, can't you just imagine Robin flipping around the dragon, Aqualad doing the second task in either 3 minutes of like an hour because he was so busy talking to the merpeople? Kid Flash completing the maze in record time? I'd like this to be Robin/Kid Flash, but gen is fine too:)"_

_So I'm going to go with Gen.  
><em>

_I'm working on another YJ x HP prompt, but with this one I feel a bit more certain about where things are going. So enjoy._

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

**The Five Champions**

"So are they changing it or not?"

Wally rolled his eyes across from him, but he had an amused smile on as he continued piling food into his empty plate. He was already on his fourth serving, and the kids of the Hufflepuff table were trying not to stare, failing. Most of the school was failing, actually.

The Hogwarts kids had been giving them the same interest as the other two schools, but the Beauxbatons students kept shooting them dirty looks, and the Durmstrang kids thought they were the only ones who knew North Germanic languages. Conner was keeping an ear open for them, but informed that most was gossip and anything related to them was pure speculation. Sometimes the education given to him by the genomorphs was very useful.

"They're not going to change the Tournament's name just because you say so," Artemis pointed out, making a face at Wally as he continued stuffing his face.

"But it won't be THREE wizards, it'll be FOUR. So, it should be the Tetrawizard Tournament," Dick insisted, grinning widely at her. The girl just shot him a wry look that made him cackle loudly.

She still wasn't quite over the photo incident, it seemed. Given the specifications of the mission, and Robin's denial to be left out as backup, the whole team had been made aware of his secret identity. He'd feared their team dynamics might be affected by it, but the whole team had been pretty accepting of the fact he was the ward of one of the richest men in the continent. And while Artemis still seemed flustered that she hadn't recognized him sooner, given his troll tendencies, Batman was the one who got the short end of the straw. It was considerably harder for them to imagine playboy millionaire Bruce Wayne as Gotham's Dark Knight, but they had been off to the mission before anything could be said.

"Triwizard really doesn't seem to fit," Kaldur agreed, with all the patience one had to have to put up with this team. "But we've already discussed this, Richard-"

"Dick," he corrected.

"—and you can discuss it with Mr. Bagman if you get the chance."

"Hey!" Wally cried, seeming dismayed as the plates emptied. Sighing, he plopped the remaining apple pie he still held into his mouth, stretched, and turned towards the front along with everyone else. Wally had probably been the only one who enjoyed their second feast in a row as much as the first one, but not everyone could have super-high metabolisms.

Albus Dumbledore stood before the famed Goblet of fire, considering it with a soft smile on his face.

"Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision. I estimate that it requires one more minute." Dick eyed the wooden cup, the way its blue-white flames danced, and wondered how one could estimate that. "Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber where they will be receiving their first instructions."

And they were left in the darkness, all candles except those inside the carved pumpkins extinguishing, courtesy of a wide movement of Dumbledore's arm, while a bewitching silence came over the Great Hall.

"Talk about dramatic tension," Wally muttered from his seat, earning him an elbow to the side from Artemis's direction. Really, if they hated each other that much, they shouldn't sit next to each other.

The roar of fire against paper filled the room, the goblet's flames turning a bright red. A burnt piece of paper shot into the air, propelled by a single lick of flames and several sparks. Soundless gasps and murmurs of excitement ran through the room like a wave, but everything fell quiet once more when Headmaster Dumbledore caught a piece of what Dick made out to be parchment.

"The champion for Durmstrang," he read under the light of the once-more blue-white flames, "will be Viktor Krum."

"Told ya," Artemis's voice said amidst the booming cheer that had exploded along the tables. They all clapped politely along, and Megan twisted in her seat along with Kaldur to get a better look of the student in question. The guy walked with an almost menacing slouch, and Artemis gave a loud sigh of disappointment when he disappeared through the door behind the staff table. "That's one fine male specimen," she said, resting her elbows on the table while everyone quieted.

"I doubt Champions are elected depending on how 'fine' they are," Wally huffed. The goblet's flames were turning red again, making all chatter die, but their speedster continued in a low tone: "But if that were the case, I've got you all beat."

Dick snickered, and didn't have to look to know Artemis was the one making puking sounds.

"You wish," she added for good measure. Dumbledore had already caught the second piece of parchment, and held it closer to the light so he could read it.

"The champion of Beauxbatons, is Fleur Delacour."

A very pretty girl stood up from the Ravenclaw table, making a show of pushing her blonde hair over her shoulder before marching to the front.

"Are you sure they don't pick them for their looks?" Conner asked dubiously, though his eyes did not linger on her shape as long as the rest of their male teammates, Dick included.

"I'm sure they don't," Kaldur reassured him.

The Hall was quieting once more, and Artemis chose that moment to ask what had been on their heads since the first name came out:

"Who do you think will get picked?"

Despite the Age-Line Dumbledore had drawn around the goblet, each and every member of their team had dropped their names into the fire, though they made sure to do so late at night, with the Great Hall empty so no one could see the line being lifted exclusively for them, then being drawn once more.

"Well, who's the most daring, adventurous, handsome, and intelligent member of the team?" Wally said knowingly, chest puffed up and hands tugging at his white shirt's collar.

"Wolf!" Artemis whispered in mock understanding and a matching expression, even smacking her fist on her open palm.

Wally's outraged splutters and Megan's giggles were covered by the deafening cheers of the room when Cedric Diggory was declared the Hogwarts champion. Even Conner smirked at the dirty looks Wally was shooting Artemis, but Robin wasn't so kind in hiding his laughter. He even whipped a fake tear from the corner of his eye as silence once more covered the Hall, and knew there were eyes shooting their way again.

They were the only 'school' left, and it was obvious why the students were curious. Both Durmstrang and Beaxbatons had brought only their older students, and while they weren't many, they certainly weren't as small in number as their own group. Each had at least a dozen of students, while their team were a mere six people, half of which didn't look old enough to compete. If they had had to follow the age rule, only Megan would have been able to participate, seeing as the second-oldest was Kaldur, at sixteen, and his birthday was still a couple of weeks away.

For everyone in the room, it might seem like the only two obvious choices for champion would be either Kaldur or Conner.

"Everyone here has an equal chance of being chosen. No matter who becomes the champion, I'm sure all will continue performing their roles marvelously," he said. This was met with smiles from everyone; and of course Kaldur was right. If they were completely honest, the champion title mattered very little. Their mission merely required they have a man (or woman) on the inside.

Still, their eyes were sharp on the piece of paper that surfaced from the goblet, because they were still teenagers, and there was always a bit of a competitive streak in them.

Dumbledore caught the piece of notebook paper and unfolded it.

"The champion of Houdini's Institute for Alternative Magic," Dumbledore read, and Dick continued wondering who had come up with that, "is Richard Grayson!"

Both a loud groan and a louder whoop were heard as the smallest member of the group jumped to stand on his seat, arms held high above his head in an obvious victory pose, "Take that, Wally!"

"Dude, that's completely unfair!" Wally whined loudly into the shocked silence of the Great Hall.

"Congratulations, Dick," Kaldur said, and Megan was clapping excitedly, Artemis let loose a few wild whistles just to get on Wally's nerves, and Conner nodded his approval while also rolling his eyes.

People were murmuring around them, but the student body slowly began clapping along with Dick's team. He smirked at Wally one last time before vaulting off his seat in a back flip, and merrily skipping over to the front of the Hall.

Zatara was seated at the staff table, and was being bombarded with hissed questions from Mr. Karkaroff, but he still managed to catch his eye and sent him a small nod. The magician, currently dressed in a very elegant but completely non-magical three-piece suit, responded with a stiff nod that told him the man still wasn't quite over their little act of kidnapping his daughter. Dick snickered, gave a formal nod to Dumbledore, and continued on to the room behind the staff table.

He didn't pause when he noticed the ambient light behind him turn red for a fifth time, knowing his teammates would debrief him on whatever had happened once they were back together.

"Hey," he greeted the other three champions, completely unimpressed by their silent silhouettes against the fire. Instead of addressing their weirded-out looks, though, he examined the room around him, waving at the staring portraits and taking notice of any emergency exits. There weren't any other than the door he'd just come from and they probably wouldn't be needed, but you could never really forget Batman's training.

He was on his way to check out the roaring fireplace when he heard soft steps coming down the staircase.

His eyebrows arched, but given the info they'd gotten before coming here, he wasn't surprised when he spotted fourteen-year-old Harry James Potter standing uncertainly on the pathway.

Well, he thought, things were going to get interesting.

"Hey!" he repeated, noticing Harry seemed to be stuck staring at the older champions with dread and looking more than slightly intimidated. The look eased when his eyes landed on Dick, though, and he walked further into the room when he motioned him over.

"Do zey want us back in ze Hall?" the Fleur girl asked, and Dick almost didn't manage to hold back his snort.

Before he could correct her (because it didn't look like Harry was going to say anything), Ludo Bagman was rushing over to where Harry was and crying out "Extraordinary!" with shining eyes.

"Gentlemen, lady, may I introduce the _fifth_ Triwizard champion?"

And NOW Dick snorted, throwing an arm companionably around Harry's shoulders, because it looked like Bagman was trying to squeeze the flesh out of his arm.

"About that, Mr. Bagman," he said, completely overriding the reactions the other three champions might have wanted to voice, "I was thinking we should rename the whole Tournament, given this year's attendance. I was very taken with 'Tetrawizard Tournament', but I suppose it doesn't really fit now. How do you feel about the 'Pentawizad Tournament'?"

Viktor's expression turned from merely darkened to scowling, Cedric's puzzled face could compete with Conner's, and Fleur seemed torn between frowning and giving him a blank look. Harry just looked at him with confusion, not bothering to get out from under his arm, and Bagman's eyebrows were almost reaching his hairline. Dick sighed.

"Yeah, I know. Doesn't sound as catchy, does it?"


	2. Blast Ended Days

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

The following days were very stressful for Harry. He almost wanted to compare it to his second year, when everyone thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, but it wasn't quite the same. The Gryffindors, for one, were on his side, and no one thought he was dangerous: just a cheat. But the fact that Ron was being an idiot and continued to believe Harry had put his name in the cup, no matter what Harry said otherwise, was really making him feel depressed. Not to mention the possibility of someone wanting him killed in the Tournament, the fact Sirius had not yet replied to his letter, and Hedwig not coming anywhere near him because he wouldn't use her to send letters, and it seemed like the worst time Harry had had at Hogwarts.

The only people who did not seem to hate him aside from the Gryffindors were the students from the Houdini Institute. In fact, they were even friendly towards him, specially their champion.

He was a whole year younger than Harry, and he was completely full of energy. Every time they crossed paths on the corridors, he would give him a bright grin and a wave, and more often than not call out a pleasant, "Doing okay, Harry?" Thankfully, he did it without any trace of the adoration Colin Creevey had bestowed on him during second year.

Given that the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons champions didn't give him a second glance and the whole of Hufflepuff was giving him the cold shoulder, Harry found this a bit heartening. Then he'd catch Ron giving him a sour, knowing look, like Harry had planned it all out with Richard's help, and he would try to ignore the kid altogether. Which proved to be a bit difficult.

"Hey, Harry," he heard, just before a familiar dark-haired boy plopped down across from the aisle. In the Transfiguration classroom. The pretty redhead girl of their group had also come along, and was looking around with obvious enthusiasm.

Both of them looked very out of place, and not only because they weren't part of the Fourth Year students: Richard could have passed as one, and even looking closer to being fifteen or sixteen, his friend could have fit in, too. It was just that, while none of the other schools had the same tastes in uniform as Hogwarts, their attires at least looked very much wizard-like. The Houdini Institute of Alternative Magic, on the other hand, had a completely muggle attire, complete with black trousers, white vests, and dark blue sleeveless jumpers. They also wore ties, but from what Harry had seen, they were completely mismatched (Richard's was red, but his friends wore everything from yellow to dark blue).

"Who's your friend?"

It took Harry a moment to realize he was talking about Hermione, seated next to him.

"Hermione Granger," the girl introduced herself, smiling a bit at the salute Richard sent her way.

"I'm Richard, but please call me Dick. And this is Megan."

"This is so exciting!" The girl had her wand out, clutched tightly in one hand. "This place is so amazing! It's just like in that movie, the Sword in the Stone!"

Dick laughed, and Hermione let out a confused giggle, but Harry didn't know quite what to say. So he asked the first question that came to his mind:

"What are you doing here?"

The boy just relaxed back into his seat, bringing out his wand and twirling it between his fingers. He didn't seem aware of the curious eyes on him, or if he was, he did a good job if pretending not to notice. "Your Principal said, and I quote, _'all of our guests should feel free to visit classes throughout their stay, so long as the teacher doesn't see fit to ban them from their lessons_'," he said in what was a very bad imitation of Dumbledore's voice. "So we decided we'd drop in to some classes. Our school is all hung up on non-conventional magic and all that, so we hardly know anything about these things. The other schools have their own plans of study, I suppose, but we've always been very flexible. We figure we can just try and learn some old-fashioned magic before any of us get kicked out, anyway."

The kid sounded very cheerful about it, but Harry felt cold dread running up his stomach. McGonagall had walked into the room, though, so he didn't get to ask anything. Whether it was because of the presence of the foreign students or the fact they hadn't been doing too well in their animal-to-animal transfigurations, Professor McGonagall declared they should do a small review of inanimate-to-animate transfiguration.

Most of the class didn't have a problem with it, and to his surprise, Megan got it right in her first try.

"Impressive, Miss Morse. If you were a student here, I'd award you several points for that. Are you quite sure you hadn't tried this before?"

"Not at all! I mean, not on other beings or things, at least."

Harry didn't know what to make of that, but McGonagall was soon asking Megan to perform other transfigurations, carefully explaining and demonstrating first, so she could 'get a grasp on her understanding of the subject's practice'.

Dick, on the other hand, had not managed to make his teacup resemble a mouse in the least. In fact, halfway through the review, Harry was pretty sure that no matter how much the kid poked it with his wand, nothing was happening. He didn't look bothered by it, though, and honestly didn't seem to be trying. When he caught Harry staring, he just gave him a grin and a shrug.

"Transfiguration's not my thing, I think," he laughed off.

The cold in Harry's stomach settled a bit more firmly, but he still gave a weak smile in response, hoping that Transfiguration was just a weak spot in Dick's education.

* * *

><p>Ron found that while Dean and Seamus were fun to be around with, he really couldn't put his heart into much of what they did. Oh, he laughed with them and tagged along to classes, but his mind kept wandering towards other things, like Harry. And that was something he was trying hard not to do, because thinking of Harry just made him feel a weird mix of anger, frustration, and oddly, a bit of guilt. Which he shouldn't be feeling, because it was Harry who was being a prat.<p>

Thankfully, Care of Magical Creatures was a perfect distraction from all that. Hagrid still hadn't given up on the Blast-Ended Skrewts, and he'd had the brilliant idea of taking the hideous things for a walk. Ron and Seamus had somehow managed to get the leash around the creature, but it was Ron who got dumped with the task of actually walking it around.

He could only watch in horror as Parvati screeched, being dragged forward on the grass when her Skrewt's tail went off in a small explosion that sent it flying forward. His own hadn't exploded yet, but the thing skittered forward at an alarming speed, forcing him to jog just to keep up with it.

"Slow down," he groaned in frustration, shifting his grip on the leash with the intention of securing it on his wrist.

But Harry's luck must have been rubbing off on him, because the blasted creature chose that moment to explode, propelling it into the air and snatching the leash out of Ron's hands.

Barely catching himself on the grass with his arms, Ron looked up to see where the thing had ended up, knowing he had to catch it before it tried to escape.

But there was no need to worry. A tall figure had caught the Skrewt, no doubt as it had gone flying towards him. It was one of the students from the Houdini Institute in America, and he was inexplicably holding the creature at arm's length, not hindered by its size or the way its oddly-angled legs moved around.

"What's this?" the bloke asked, frowning at the thing he was holding, but not seeming at all disgusted by it. Ron's Skrewt tried to get him in the arm with it's stinger, but it must've missed him, because there were no cries of pain. He only reacted when the sting tried to get the person next to him (_"Dude!"_), at which point he growled: "Stop that." His tone was scolding and his glare was scary, and after a small squeeze, the thing had stopped it's attempts at attacking.

By the time Ron had reached them, the Skrewt had calmed down, and even allowed itself to be held against the student's muscular chest.

"H-how did you do that?" Ron asked, but kept a couple feet away just in case.

"Do what?" was his reply. The bloke was now experimentally stroking the beast's armour, and Ron could only watch, baffled, as the creature seemed to shift its legs to secure itself to the guy's arms and chest. "What's it called?"

"It, eh, it doesn't have a name. It's a Blast-Ended Skrewt..." Ron said, trailing off to look at Hagrid for support. The groundkeeper was speaking with Harry, though, and Ron scowled.

"I'm going to call it Crab." It wasn't a suggestion; it was a statement.

"Ah, sure, you do that," he said helplessly.

"He's not very creative when it comes to names," the other guy said, offering his hand to Ron, who shook it numbly. "My name's Wally, and the creature-magnet over there is Conner. Nice to meet you."

Wally was tall, but fit rather than lanky, unlike Ron, and he had freckles along with short-trimmed red hair. His expression was open and welcoming, and Ron was reminded of his older brothers, particularly Charlie. He found himself liking the guy already.

"This is an interesting class you've got," he offered, looking around and wincing at the sight of students being dragged around on their stomachs. "We've been sticking to the younger years' classes; your principal said we'd find them easier to follow if we hadn't had them before. But... seriously? I mean, aren't these things a bit big for you?"

"Tell that to Hagrid," Ron grunted, taking a seat on the grass. He was all too happy to let Conner handle his Skrewt while he took a small break. Seamus was trying to pull Dean's away from Bulstrode's, the two females circling each other viciously. It would be a matter of minutes before the population of the little monsters went down by at least one. "He seems to think they're cute and cuddly."

"Well, maybe they are. You know, to big and nearly-invulnerable guys like him and Con."

Ron looked to his right, and found the older student had placed the Skrewt down, where it was somehow balancing on it's curved shell, letting Conner tickle it's soft underside. The creature was letting out snappish sounds which sounded disturbingly happy, and Ron was sure he never wanted to hear such sounds again. Maybe Conner was a distant relative of Hagrid's?

The large man had finally noticed what one of his pets was doing, and was approaching them with wide, happy strides. Harry followed until he spotted Ron, at which point both averted their eyes, and his spectacled friend went to help Hermione with her hyperactive Skrewt.

"Oh, wasn't that the second Hogwarts Champion?" Wally asked, and Ron looked up to see his eyes trailing Harry. "You know, the Larry kid?"

"Harry," Ron said curtly, frowning at the foreign student. "Harry Potter. You've got to have heard of him."

"Uh, sure I do! He defeated Moldywarts when he was a baby, didn't he?"

He managed to somehow choke on his own spit. Hagrid sent him a worried glance from where he was kneeling next to Conner, but Wally waved it away after a few hard pats to Ron's back, moving to sit down next to him.

"You okay, dude?"

"Don't—" But he found he didn't know what to say. Wally technically hadn't said his name, but mocking the name seemed more suicidal than just saying it, and Ron didn't know if he should flinch or not. "You're just like Harry," he said. And it came out bitter, but he didn't care. He was tired of Harry always getting the spotlight, without even trying. That ugly green monster was crawling up his chest again, along with that ill-conceived anger, which he could now partially direct at someone else. "Did you tell him how to get past the age-line?"

"Tell who? Harry?" Ron nodded sullenly, half-heartedly glaring at Wally from the corner of his eye. "Nope. I don't even know the guy, why would I tell him how I got past it?" It would be safe to assume he wouldn't tell Ron either, then. "Aren't you in his dorm? Didn't he tell you ? Dick says Harry said he didn't put his name in, and-"

"Well, he's lying," he scoffed, feeling his ears redden. He didn't want someone else telling him about how wonderful and honest Harry was, Hermione had already tried that.

Wally raised his hands in surrender, sending him a careful look.

"If you say so. You obviously know the guy better, so if you say he's a slimy liar, then I'll have to take your word for it."

"He's not," Ron said, gripping the fabric of his worn robes. "A slimy liar. He isn't. He's my best mate." Or he'd thought he was.

Now Wally just looked puzzled.

"So he's your friend? Why don't you believe him, then?"

"Because he's bloody lying! He put his name in the goblet and he won't tell me how, he won't even admit it! And it's not-!"

He clenched his jaw shut, feeling the guilt surfacing from under the anger. The little jealous voice that told him Harry had to be lying, because they had both been keen on entering the tournament and Harry had somehow managed it, just like he managed everything else that seemed impossible to those around him. He just hadn't told Ron about it, and here the jealous voice turned wretched and cruel. Because then he began thinking that it was not because Harry wanted to hog all the attention for himself that he lied, but because he didn't trust Ron anymore. And it hurt, because Harry had been his first best friend, and it was not his fault that his pet rat had actually been a middle-aged, disgusting man who had tried to get him killed, but he'd thought it was okay when Harry didn't say anything about it during the summer and when they came back for the new term.

So things were not okay, and Harry just didn't get it. He didn't get how guilty Ron felt about the whole thing, didn't get how little it mattered because everyone was more worried about Harry, and it was always Harry. Harry, who his own sibling favored over him; Harry, who always solved everything after pulling together random facts with a spark of enlightenment; Harry, who always risked his life and thought nothing of it; Harry, who always got all the glory.

"It's not bloody fair." And he was NOT sulking.

"Life normally isn't," Wally mused, and he dropped back onto the grass with his arms padding his head. "Anyway, I hope he does okay. Can't resign from the Tournament and all. I wonder what they're going to be fighting with in the First Task."

"Fight with?" Ron echoed, frowning.

"Yeah. The first test is for 'daring and courage in the face of the unknown', and they can only bring their wands. So Dick figures they're going to make them duel some dangerous enemy of some kind. I'd say one of those," he jerked his head towards the Skrewts, "but they're kind of small fry. It looks like you could just stand aside and wait for them to finish off each other. Kaldur says it will probably be an animal, because a human enemy is always more dangerous."

Ron's mind quickly went over some of the magical creatures they (or more accurately, Harry) had faced over the years. The troll, the acromantulas, the basilisk, the dementors. Each and every one of the memories made Ron's face pale a bit further. Every time they had had to go against those, it had been because there were lives at risk. His friend was mental if he was thinking of going up against any of them for something like glory, specially since he already was the Boy Who Lived.

His resolve and his anger both seemed to waver. Then he remembered who else was in the Tournament.

"Aren't you worried, then?" he asked. He eyed Conner, and thought the bloke might hold pretty well against a Troll, even without a wand. He could handle the three-feet-long Skrewts like they were kittens. But the Houdini champion was closer in size to Harry, who was a skinny boy, and one of the shortest in their year. "About your friend?"

"Dick? He's going to be fine," he said flippantly, and his completely relaxed posture backed up his statement. "I'm counting on it. Artemis bet he's going to finish he Task within twenty minutes. I bet on ten minutes."

It seemed like an overly confident posture, and it made Ron's eyebrows furrow in mild disbelief. He didn't question Wally, though, baffled by the trust he had in his friend.

Ron looked over at where his own friends were. The scorpion slash crab was fighting against their attempts to lead it back to its crate. Hermione's hair was even messier than normal, and Harry's jaw was clenched in concentration as he tugged on the leash. The beasts's end went off in an explosion that sent it flying towards Harry and had them both tumbling to the ground, and Ron couldn't shake the image of a much larger, fiercer-looking Skrewt trying to stab Harry with a huge poisonous stinger.

"I'll see you later, Wally," he said, not noticing the redhead had rested back on the grass for a nap. He headed over to a shrieking Hermione, sending a withering glare at Malfoy when he heard him and his cronies laughing.

When they finally got the beast (which was thankfully stinger-less) off their dazed-looking friend, Ron only nodded at Harry, letting their eyes meet. While obviously confused, Harry only nodded back, and there was such naked relief in his eyes that Ron felt his resolution melt away. He didn't think he was ready to believe Harry hadn't put his name in the goblet. But he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, if only so he could make sure his friend wasn't going to get killed.

Together, the two boys forced the Skrewt back into its crate, and the three of them gave matching sighs of disbelief when Conner merely carried Ron's into another, where it happily curled up to sleep.

* * *

><p><em>Sorry that the chapters are kind of short. Can't be helped, though. Same order and length as posted in Livejournal.<em>


	3. Strange Houdini Students

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

She wasn't sure what had come over Ron in the last few days, but Hermione was thankful for it. When she'd seen the stubborn coldness with which Harry and Ron treated each other those few days after Harry was declared Champion, she had been sure the conflict was going to last. She couldn't remember ever seeing them so mad with each other, not for that long. It had been a stressing situation, and one she wasn't used to: it was normally Hermione getting upset with them because of something insensitive they'd done.

So she was very glad when Ron suddenly came forward to help during Hagrid's class. From then on, their little group had been carefully reassembled, and while there was a lot of tension remaining, Ron and Harry were in speaking terms again. And even with that strain, Harry seemed much more relaxed, and Hermione was sure that was the only reason he hadn't caved in and cursed Malfoy when the Slytherins showed up in Potions class with "Potter Stinks" badges.

Ron had looked very exasperated when Harry was excused from Potions so he could go to some champion-related event, so Hermione had tried to avoid the topic of the Tournament at first. She shouldn't have bothered, because Ron had brought it up that same night at dinner, before a very taxed-looking Harry could even sit down. He told them that he'd spoken with one of the Houdini students and explained what he'd said about the first task. Harry had gone pale, and none of them had eaten much that evening.

In retrospect, Hermione thought it was very normal that she'd forgotten to ask Harry what they had called him for earlier that day. She got her answer on the front page of the Daily Prophet a few days later.

"I can't stand that git," Ron was saying. Hermione didn't look up from the newspaper, knowing he and Harry were still hung up on the badges, and were most likely talking about Malfoy.

Harry shoved some porridge into his mouth angrily, and nodded his agreement

Their mutual dislike for Malfoy was a safe topic, so Hermione allowed herself to tone them out to read the article before her.

_For the first time since its first run, the Triwizard Tournament is anything but. With not three but five Champions, the ancient competition is sure to be the most exciting event of the Century. The participating schools this year are Hogwarts School of Witchcraft of Wizardry, the Durmstrang Institute, the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, and for the first time in recorded history since its recent surfacing, the Houdini Institute for Alternative Magic (for an article on the Institute's origins, refer to page 9)._

Making a note to check that page out later, Hermione skipped further down the page, just skimming the article. There was a mention of weighing of the champion's wands, and small paragraphs dedicated to each one of them. Harry's, she noticed, was larger than Krum's, while Delacour's was average. Dick's section was remarkably small, and Hermione thought the writer (some Rita Skeeter) wasn't too interested in him. Most of the article went around explaining the Tournament for the readers, as well as bringing to light nasty rumors about the judges and skirting about Harry's fame.

All in all, Hermione didn't think she liked the writer.

Above the article, a photo of all the champions and the judges occupied half of the front page. Madame Maxime was seated in the middle just to fit completely in the frame, with everyone standing around her. Harry stood next to Fleur and before Dumbledore, and next to the Headmaster was an attractive middle-aged man that Hermione recognized as Houdini's Deputy Headmaster. A quick look in the captions gave her the name Giovanni Zatara. Standing in front of the man was Dick, and—

Hermione blinked, resisted the urge to rub at her eyes, and stared.

Richard, sporting a wide and charming grin, was wearing a pair of dark eyeglasses that obscured his eyes from view. Every so often, he'd flash a peace sign to the camera or flick his tongue out playfully. Professor Zatara's photo-self would then squeeze his shoulder warningly, and the boy was back to grinning and standing straight, waving politely along with everyone else. He never took off the sunglasses.

"How did they let him wear those to the photo?" she scoffed lightly, still staring, just in case that he would take off the headgear eventually.

"Wear what?" Hermione passed the newspaper over to show it to Harry, and blinked when he looked surprised. "I didn't notice he was wearing them."

"What!" she frowned. "Harry, he was standing right next to you, how didn't you notice?"

Harry's shoulders shrugged defensively. "He must've put them on right before they took the photo. And the flash was very bright, so I must've missed when he took them off again." But she could see he was very puzzled, and wondered if he was thinking the same thing as her. Surely they had taken more than one photo. Had he whipped out the shades every single time they took one? Who would do that?

"What are they?" Ron was peering over Harry's shoulder at the photo. "Why would someone wear glasses that dark?"

"They're sunglasses," Hermione explained. "Muggles wear them to protect their eyes from the sun or bright lights. You're not supposed to wear them indoors, and definitely not for a photography."

"Then why is he wearing them?"

"Because he's a little troll, that's why," an unfamiliar female voice told them.

Hermione looked up, and saw a girl sitting across from them. She had blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, lightly tanned skin, and looked to be of Asian descent. Her plate clattered a bit when she set it down on the table, and she grabbed a nearby cup to serve herself some milk.

"He's part troll?" Ron asked, sounding scandalized. The blonde rolled her eyes, and pulled over the newspaper that had been left on the table to look at the photo herself.

"I mean he's a mischievous little jerk," she told him over her juice. Hermione frowned at her wording and huffed, but the girl just looked at her with an arched eyebrow. "The name's Artemis. You don't mind if I sit here, do you? Those idiots in green laugh too loudly for me to deal with at this time of the morning."

Hermione looked over at the Slytherin table, where the fourth year Slytherins were indeed laughing, probably at something completely inappropriate. The Houdini students usually sat at the Hufflepuff table right next to them, but all of them were absent that morning.

"Where are your classmates?" she asked.

"Exploring the castle, I think. Kaldur's taken to swimming in the lake during the mornings, though, so he's probably there."

"_Swimming in the lake_?" Ron repeated. Hermione understood why: it was only the beginnings of November, but the climate had been steadily changing from fresh to chilly, and the mornings were always the coldest. Artemis just shrugged in response, and continued eating her breakfast.

She knew a dismissal when she saw one, and held in her dislike for the girl across them. She was kind of rude, and she looked like the sort to pick on smaller students, like Richard. She certainly bickered enough with the redhead, West, and she had the bad habit of making inappropriate comments about some of the male students. She'd overheard her telling Megan about how good-looking some of the Durmstrang students were, though in less polite words that made Hermione's cheeks fluster slightly. It had been Binn's class, and she had left halfway through it, probably because she deemed it too boring for her.

"Is... Is Dick good at magic?"

Harry was looking at the upside-down photograph on the newspaper while Artemis scanned the front page. There was a thoughtful and slightly concerned look in his face that Hermione couldn't quite understand.

The blond gave him a considering look, before nodding. "Yeah, he's good. Pretty decent with your magic, but he's very good with ours. You don't need to worry about him."

The dark-haired boy opened his mouth, and Hermione wasn't sure if it was to complain or to ask something else, because Artemis let out a call of annoyance when the newspaper was snatched from right between her fingers.

"Again with the photos, Potter? Are you giving autographs too? I was wondering when you'd start!"

Of course it had to be Malfoy.

Hermione rolled her eyes, and felt a small amount of pride when neither Ron or Harry stood up from their seats. She could see Harry's fists clench until his knuckles were white, though, and both of them were glaring daggers at the pale boy.

"You never got to answer me, Potter. Would you like one of our badges?" Hermione could have groaned, and she made a motion to slap her own forehead. This was what had almost gotten them into trouble just a few days ago, she figured he would've forgotten about it. "Maybe Granger wants one? I see you continue making friends with only the scum of the Wizarding World."

Harry and Ron had stood up by now, thankfully still wandless, but Artemis had gotten to her feet as well. She was only a smidge taller than Malfoy, but with her arms crossed and eyes narrowed, she looked much more menacing in comparison.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. Malfoy had flinched, or t least Hermione thought he had, but then he was sneering at her, with Crabbe and Goyle trying to imitate her menacing pose at either side of him.

"Are you deaf, mudblood? Your school is a farce. 'Alternative Magic' is just fancy talk for teaching Squibs muggle tricks so they won't feel useless. I'd be surprised any of you can do more than the simplest spells." Crabbe and Goyle laughed gruffly sat either side of him, and Malfoy gave a disgusted little sound. "To let you all come here is just a waste of space, there's not a single one of you who comes from a decent wizarding family. I bet your little friend is going to last even less than Potter here."

From what she'd seen of the girl, Hermione though she would have cursed Malfoy already. From where she was sitting, though, she could only see arched eyebrows and an almost bored expression.

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were going to say something interesting, but it's all inbreed bigotry. My bad."

Ron and Harry snickered, only to go for their wands as a furious-looking Malfoy drew out his. They weren't fast enough, but despite the fact they were less than three feet away, Artemis easily dodged his spell, which instead landed on Hermione's face. She immediately brought her hands to cover her mouth and nose, though at first she didn't realize what the spell was meant to do. Then she let out a startled, muffled cry, because her front teeth suddenly felt much longer than they were.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Ron was saying, trying to pull her hands away from her mouth. And before Harry could shoot a spell in retaliation or Malfoy could let out a single bark of laughter, the harsh sound of a fist colliding with flesh echoed in the Hall.

Momentarily distracted from her small dilemma, Hermione looked over the table to see Malfoy sprawled on the ground, one hand over his bleeding nose. Artemis was standing with her fist over him, a nasty smirk on her face.

"How's that for a useless mudblood?"

"Miss Crock!" Professor Zatara and Professor Snape were striding over, the former in the lead.

"He attacked first, sir."

"She broke my nose! The little-!"

"He got Hermione, Professor! Look!"

"It was self-defense, really. You must've seen it from the head table."

"Blimey, they're still growing!"

"—my father! You'll be sorry you laid a hand on me-!"

"Hermione, stop that, let them see!"

"Quiet!" The growing ruckus finally came to an end, and Hermione could hardly cover her growing teeth with both hands. Professor Zatara's eyes lingered a second on her before focusing on his student. "Miss Crock, what you did was unacceptable and you shall receive a proper punishment for it. Don't let me catch you causing trouble for the Hogwarts populace again, or I'll be forced to contact your Uncle about your behavior."

"Yes, sir," she didn't sound contrite in the least, but the mention of her uncle subdued her slightly. "Can I help take Miss Granger to the nurse's office now?"

Professor Snape didn't look very happy with the suggestion. Before he could say anything, the Deputy Headmaster shot a look at Malfoy, who was being helped up by his two large friends, and nodded sharply.

"Go ahead. But seek me out after you're done, we still need to discuss your punishment."

"Yeah, yeah, got it. Come on now, you."

'You' apparently referred to their whole group, because Hermione was suddenly being stirred towards the entrance doors by Artemis, who had her other hand on Ron's forearm. Harry was quick to follow, carrying the three of their bags. The faint echo of three more pairs of feet told Hermione Malfoy and his goons weren't far behind, but she didn't think they'd try anything. Malfoy was too busy moaning about his nose and hissing threats against Artemis, who did not seem to be listening.

"What's the fastest route to the Nurse, then?"

"This way." Ron steered them towards the staircase, and Harry watched their back while they advanced, leaving the two girls in the middle of their line.

Hermione was close to tears now, though she was trying to keep them from falling. She must've been doing a horrible job, and her teeth must be a sight, because Artemis took one look at her and said:

"Remind me to teach you how to pack a good left-hook someday," and she gave her a few comforting pats on the back, "so you can get back at him yourself."

Hermione gave a scandalized sniff, but she could tell the girl meant well, and after a second of consideration gave a shaky nod. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

><p>"This is great, Harry! Now we have our main plan, and a backup plan," Hermione sounded cautiously optimistic, going as far as to offer an encouraging smile, which Harry returned easily.<p>

When Ron had told them what Wally thought was going to be the First Task, he'd been nervous. Then, Hagrid had actually showed them what he was going to be up against for the First Task, and he'd been considerably worse than nervous. And while his secret meeting with Sirius in the common room had given him an option on how to tackle the task, he wasn't too confident on his own ability to cast a spell on the eyes of a moving dragon. After his talk with Professor Moody, though...

"So, you're either going to try to blind a dragon or fly around to sneak past him?" Ron didn't seem to share their enthusiasm. "I don't know, Harry. Charlie said they were nesting mothers, didn't he? He always goes on and on about how short-tempered those are... Sounds like either way, you'll be taunting it."

"I can't think of anything else, though," Harry said, trying not to get upset with Ron. Their friendship was back to normal now, but since they saw the dragons last Saturday night, he'd been very edgy. Harry thought it was because Ron actually knew what dragons were capable of, and more than once he'd grown quiet and pale during lulls in their conversation. It didn't seem normal, but Hermione told him he was just worried about him, so Harry let it be.

Pulling himself away from whatever he was thinking (and Harry had the growing suspicion that it involved him getting gruesome wounds while trying to sneak past the dragon), Ron gave a jerky nod. "Okay. We're going to practice summoning charms, then?"

At least, Harry thought, they had already covered those in Charms. He was having some trouble with it, but if he practiced all afternoon, he was sure he would manage to get it down pat. When the time came to face the dragon, Harry would have more than one course of action. If he couldn't aim properly when his opponent was a live dragon, then he could always summon his broom and play to his own natural skills.

"We can use the same room we used yesterday, there were plenty of things we could use to practice the charm."

They left the Great Hall to head for the staircase, because thankfully there were no more classes after lunch. Harry paused when he heard a familiar voice behind them:

"Man, we're late! I told you we should've come sooner, lunch is almost over!"

Harry quickly whirred around, looking at where Dick and Wally were standing. He began walking towards them, ignoring Ron's confused call for him as guilt nibbled away at his gut. After talking to Cedric and then being brought into Moody's office to talk to him about the first task, Harry had forgotten about his decision to tell Richard about the dragons.

Madame Maxime and Karkaroff both had been at the forest two nights ago, and doubtless they had told their respective students. But Harry had not seen Zatara anywhere, and no one was going to tell Cedric if Harry didn't. So he had, but then he'd been distracted from completing his task, because he had just wanted to get classes done with so he could tell Ron and Hermione about his new plan. Now he had his opportunity back, and he was going to tell Dick what he'd told Cedric.

"Hey, this is the perfect chance to show you the kitchen!" Wally said excitedly, and promptly turned his back to Dick, motioning with his hands. "Hop on. The little guys down there _love_ me, they'll be happy to give us lots of fuel!"

"Sounds good to me!" And with an enormous amount of ease, the smaller boy placed his hands on Wally's shoulders and jumped onto his back, letting Wally hold on to his legs on a piggy-back ride.

"Hey, Dick!" Harry called, fastening his pace, but he was a bit late. Wally, he found, could run pretty fast despite having a thirteen-year-old clinging to his back.

Harry stopped at the doors of the Great Hall, considering the long hallway before him. He could try to use the Marauder's Map to catch up with them: even if Wally was already rounding the corner they wouldd slow down to eat, so Harry was pretty sure he could reach them. It meant postponing practice for the Summoning Charm, but he had no clue where the Houdini students slept. The other two schools had arrived in big ships or carriages, but the students of the Houdini Institute had just arrived walking from the direction of Hogsmeade. It wasn't anything flashy, but more than a bit puzzling.

Harry sighed and turned towards Ron and Hermione, ready to tell them to go ahead, that he'd catch up, because he really owed it to Dick to tell him about the dragons. Dick had been the only one to recognize him as a Champion on their first day, and the only one who didn't seem to think he wasn't good enough to compete: he'd even tried to make him feel comfortable. And Harry hadn't realized just how much Dick had helped him with Skeeter during the Weighing of the Wands, not until he'd met the woman again on Hogsmeade, a few days ago. Dick had been keeping him company during the whole weighing, which meant Harry was never alone for Rita to hound on. Harry wasn't sure if Dick had done that on purpose or not, but after Skeeter's nosy questions on Hogsmeade (which only Mad-Eye and Hagrid saved him from), he felt more indebted to the kid.

"Did you want to speak to Richard?"

Harry started when he heard the deep, unfamiliar voice, and turned towards the Great Hall to see a dark-skinned boy with a muggle uniform – Houdini's uniform. Wise green eyes regarded him calmly, an apologetic smile dancing on the male's lips.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he said, and it sounded like he meant it. "I thought I heard you calling after Dick."

"I, yes, I mean..." Harry hesitated. Ron and Hermione were still watching from several feet away, and he didn't know about the relationship between the six students, but they always stuck together for mealtimes and seemed to like each other... "Could you... could you give Dick a message from me?"

The boy, Harry thought his name was Kal, blinked. "Certainly. What do you wish me to tell him?"

"It's really important," Harry stressed, glancing around to make sure there was no one listening. "And you can't tell anyone I told you. And you need to tell him soon. As soon as you can. Before tomorrow." He didn't want to scare the guy off, but it was a potentially life-or-death situation.

"I'll make sure to pass on your message," Kal reassured him, and there was something calming in his strong tone that made Harry calm down a little.

He waited until a group of first-year Ravenclaws had walked past and down the corridor, before leaning in and whispering urgently: "The first task is dragons." The dark-skinned boy just stared, but before he could say anything else, Harry continued quickly: "They've got five, one for each of the champions, and we've got to get past them. It doesn't mater how I know, everyone else does, too, and you need to tell Dick so he can prepare for tomorrow."

Harry expected to see a number of things in Kal's face. Maybe disbelief followed by wry amusement, or shock, or worry, or pure horror at the thought of his small classmate having to fight a large dragon by himself. He would've been prepared for all that, even if he wasn't any readier to answer questions than when he told Cedric.

What he had not expected was the quick understanding that came to the pale green eyes, or the fond-looking smile directed down at him.

"Thank you, Harry," said Kal, and upon seeing Harry's taken-back look, a cool and firm hand came to rest on his shoulder. "We already knew about the dragons. But we did not know you would only need to get past them. It will make preparations much easier, and I will let Dick know as soon as I can. On behalf of my classmates, I want to thank you for you concern for Dick. I had heard that you were a kind-hearted young man, and I am happy to see those words are true."

He withdrew his hand, have Harry a brief nod that the boy numbly returned, and walked off in the direction Wally and Dick had gone. His strides were confident and wide, although every few steps there'd be a small shift, as if he wasn't very comfortable in his shoes. Harry couldn't take much notice of this, because he was still stuck on one thing Kal had said.

"_Only _get past them?"

* * *

><p><em>Footnotes from my LJ post: <em>

_And that's that for the scenes previous to the First Task. I wanted to have each member of the Young Justice team in these, even if just a bit_

I'm glad everyone is enjoying this so far! It's really fun to write, and I feel bad for ignoring my other fills and fics for this, but I'm just going to try to finish this first and get it out of my system. It's supposed to be more light-hearted and character-interaction-based than anything, so I'm obviously skipping many details and explaining them as we go.

I like all of the characters of Young Justice, just so you know. I'm not sure if Artemis comes off as too rude here, but I've always perceived her as a girl with a strong character, and I thought that might clash with Hermione at first.

And an extra note, more details on whether the team (sans Kaldur) can actually perform magic, and Wally's thoughts on the 'magic' itself will be coming in following parts of the fill.


	4. The First Task

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

Harry walked inside the large tent, feeling like he had a lead weight in his stomach. All of a sudden, his back and backup plan seemed very far away, and McGonagall's nervous tone when trying to reassure him had not helped him in the least.

Fleur was sitting on a low wooden stool, her legs crossed and fingers trembling slightly. She looked pale and clammy, not nearly as calm as she usually was. Viktor Krum was silent in his corner of the tent, though he looked more threatening than usual, which Harry supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down, and sent Harry a smile when he came in, a gesture Harry returned stiffly. And Dick...

"Hey, Harry! About time you got here!"

He was the personification of nonchalance, coming over from where he'd been stretching from side to side. His uniform was missing the red tie and the dark blue jumper, and Harry noticed he'd changed out of his black dressing shoes in favor of white trainers. His trousers also looked a bit different, and Harry thought it looked like something comfortable to run in. Suddenly, he felt very inadequate with his robes, because he could bet those would catch on fire much quicker than Dick's more fitting clothes.

Harry met Dick's raised hand in a half-hearted, weak high-five (a gesture both Dick and Wally had been trying to implement among the Hogwarts students), but kept his own greeting to the same strained smile he'd given Cedric.

"I see we're all here now! I suppose it's time to fill you in." Bagman looked very out of place standing amidst the five of them, only Dick seeming to return his enthusiasm as he spoke. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag," and he held up a small sack of purple silk, shaking it lightly, "from which ou will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different – er – varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too... ah, yes... your task is to _collect the golden egg_!"

The stories Ron had let slip about how full-grown nesting mothers had mauled wizards who made the mistake of getting too close to their eggs suddenly took the front place of Harry's mind, and he could feel the blood draining from his face now. Cedric and Dick had both nodded to show they understood, Dick more enthusiastically than Cedric, but Fleur and Krum hadn't said anything. Harry didn't, either, because he felt he'd return both breakfast and what he'd managed to get down during lunch if he opened his mouth.

"You look a bit green, Harry. Want me to get you a paper bag?"

Harry shook his head, and again when Dick motioned questioningly to another of the low wooden stools. He didn't want to sit down. He was positive that if he sat down, they wouldn't be able to make him stand up again.

"Alright. Just relax. You do have a plan, don't you?" The last he asked in a lower tone of voice, and with his head inclined closer to Harry. When he nodded, he continued more loudly, "Then you've got nothing to worry about!"

Harry nodded again, but Dick's enthusiasm was doing nothing for him. He just kept listening to the sound of hundreds of feet walking past their tent, and the excited chatter that went with them. Those students had nothing to worry about, and they joked and laughed and made Harry feel as though the tent was its own small dimension, completely separate from all that cheer.

And then, what felt like just a few seconds late, Bagman was back, opening the purple silk bag and asking them to reunite around it.

Fleur was the first one to reach in ("Ladies first," Bagman had said jovially), and she drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon with her shaking hand. Harry recognized it as a Welsh Green, and it had a small number two around its neck, the sign shifting as it looked around, opening its jaws wide. Fleur did not look surprised, but rather resigned and determined, and Harry knew Madame Maxime had told her about what was coming.

Krum was pretty much the same: he reached in and pulled out the scarlet Chinese Fireball, which he stared blankly at before staring at the ground. He was number three.

Cedric's dragon was the Swedish Short-Snout, which stretched its pale blueish-gray wings over its head while Cedric held it. Harry didn't know if he should feel relieved that the dragon had the number one around its neck. On the bright side, he wasn't going to go up for at least three rounds. But then, the idea of sitting here and stewing while the others faced the large creatures wasn't too comforting.

There were only two dragons remaining, and Harry took a deep breath before reaching into the silk bag. He didn't think it was a good sign when he pulled out the Hungarian Horntail, wearing the number four. He could only stare at the miniature, baring its tiny fangs, and recall that Charlie had said it was the most dangerous of the five. He didn't come out of his reverie until he heard Dick's voice.

"Asterous."

In his hand sat the miniature of a Hebridean Black, and the boy was running a finger over the black ridges that ran along its back. Harry couldn't see the front of the miniature, but Dick could've only gotten the number five.

As they had all guessed already, the dragons were miniatures of the real things, and the numbers around their necks were the order in which they would go out. They would go out as they heard the whistle.

"Harry, could I have a quick word? Outside?"

"Er… yes," said Harry, giving Dick a puzzled look before heading out of the cave with Bagman. They walked a few feet away from the tent, but not enough for Harry to see the place where they would be facing the dragons. They stopped just under a pair of large trees, and then Bagman was watching him, wearing a fatherly expression on his face.

"Feeling all right, Harry? Anything I can get you?"

"What? I – no, nothing." Had he brought Harry out here to offer refreshments?

"Got a plan? Because I don't mind sharing a few pointers, if you'd like them, you know." Bagman's voice was low, like he was sharing a secret with him. Or like he was trying to help Harry cheat. "I mean, you're the underdog here, Harry... Anything I can do to help..."

"No," he said quickly. And he knew he sounded rude, but his mind drifted back to the tent, and he couldn't help wondering - "Are you going to give Richard pointers too?"

The man had the decency to look baffled, but before he could open his mouth to answer, a whistle sounded beyond the trees. Alarmed, Bagman only gave him a feeble look before hurrying off.

Harry crossed paths with Cedric as he walked back into the tent, and he could say with certainty that the older student was greener than he'd ever seen him. He wasn't sure he heard Dick's call wishing him good luck.

"I'm sure he'll be ok," Harry attempted when he saw Dick's concerned look, and regretted it when his own voice came out a mess of nerves. Second later, the crowd roared, and Harry knew the Hufflepuff Champion had made it into the enclosure, now face-to-face with the living counterpart of his model...

* * *

><p>"<em>Dragons<em>!"

Conner frowned and made a show of cleaning out his ear with his pinky, and Wally's cough told him he'd noticed he had just yelled his lungs out next to the only member of the team who had super hearing.

They had gotten themselves a nice quiet corner on the stands, just next to the medical tent and with a great view of the judges' stand. The closest students to them were a group of boys from the Beauxbatons Academy. They avoided talking to them by pretending not to speak English, though they knew all the students who had been picked to come were fluent in the language. It was fine by them, though, and they paid very little attention to them. This was not an excuse to speak as loudly as they could, though.

"Why didn't you tell me it was dragons?" Wally hissed, his voice quiet and angry, and clutching the back of Kaldur's seat.

"Dick asked not to tell you," Kaldur repeated for the third time, and by now he wasn't looking at Wally but at the large blue-gray dragon currently being led into the clearing. It took several wizards to get it there, but once the beast had set its eyes on the egg-filled nest, it was more than happy to settle around it.

"And you agreed with it," Artemis reminded Wally, her arms crossed behind her head and her feet up on the back of an empty seat before her. "You were pretty content with letting it be a surprise."

"Because I didn't know they'd use dragons!" Wally sounded frustrated. "I thought it would be a less dangerous hybrid, or at least something smaller! Like, like maybe a bear or something! That thing is like twenty feet long!"

"And all can breathe fire," Conner added helpfully.

At least that was what Rubeus had told him. The large man had grown fond of him because of how easily he handled animals, and he'd been more than happy to babble about how excited he was about seeing them. He hadn't really told Conner they were for the Tournament, but they had seen the wizards bringing them in, and it had been simple for M'gann to fly over invisible and check out the shipment.

Wally looked perturbed, but Conner wasn't certain if it was because of Robin – Dick – or if it was because of the idea of a huge reptile that could fly and breathe fire and shouldn't exist. Personally, Conner thought the Komodo dragons had nothing on these dragons, and couldn't see how they weren't logic, but that was the vein Wally had picked.

He'd done something similar after they followed Hagrid's fifth year class into the Forbidden Forest to look at Thestrals, and Conner had made sure to sneak to the class of magical animals without him from then on. He didn't like many of the other classes (the genomes apparently hadn't know anything about magic, and if they did they hadn't seen fit to teach him about it), so he made sure to attend as many as he could between their patrol duties. Like him, Wally didn't like many of the classes, but unlike Conner, he made his dislike of them very public once they were back in the Bio-Ship.

Thankfully, Cedric Diggory had just stepped into the enclosure, and between Ludo Bagman's amplified commentary and the sounds of the crowd, Wally's complaints were easier to tune out of. Which wasn't to say they were completely ignorable.

"That's obviously some holographic trick," Wally grunted when Diggory turned a boulder into a large dog. And Conner rolled his eyes, because they had been in a school full of magical things for a month now, and he was still stubbornly trying to explain everything away.

It was laughable, his obstinacy, especially since he was the most magically-powerful member of the team after Kaldur, courtesy of his contact with Dr. Fate. It didn't do much good, though, seeing as his wand was still sitting on its box, and hadn't been touched since he'd bought it.

"Oh, I hope the dragon doesn't catch it! I know it's not actually alive, Professor McGonagall told me all about it in her last class, but it looks so much like a real dog."

The large blue dragon was following the dog closely, snapping its jaws at it. Conner leaned forward in his seat, watching the Diggory guy starting to go for the eggs while the dragon was distracted. Then the dragon decided the dog wasn't so much of a threat as the human, and turned back around. Conner grimaced.

"_Clever _move – pity it didn't work!"

"That was close," Kaldur said aloud, and settled back from where he'd leaned forward.

"He could've tried to be a bit more subtle about it. He was in the thing's peripheral view," Artemis scoffed, arms crossed over her stomach. But even she winced when the dragon's large tail got Diggory around the middle and tossed him towards the edge of the closure. It looked like a hard hit, and the poor guy was obviously out of breath, but he got up within a few seconds. It seemed he was going to try again, this time with a larger dog.

It took another fifteen minutes and several burns, but Diggory got the golden egg. He was quickly stirred into the medical tent, and Conner could get a better look at his burns. There was a nasty one running over the side of his face which looked very painful but not nearly life-threatening. The burn on his arm was probably more serious, but the tattered robes covered most of it.

"At least Kevlar doesn't catch on fire that easily," Wally sighed, slumping back in his seat while the judges showed their scores.

Diggory had gotten a total of 44 points. It wasn't bad, Conner supposed, and they all clapped along with the crowd. The dragon was being taken away unconscious, and a new one, this with brighter green scales, was being brought in.

"I'm not sure Dick's wearing any armor," Kaldur said carefully, twisting in his seat just enough that he could watch Wally out of the corner of his eye.

"What."

"The Champions are not supposed to be wearing any armor, genius," Artemis said, also twisting in her seat, though much more obviously. "Remember what Dick said? For this task they were supposed to have only their wands. I didn't notice him picking up anything else this morning."

Excited chatter and a second whistle were heard in the silence Wally gifted them with. Conner raised an eyebrow at this behavior, and saw Wally staring at the back of Kaldur's head blankly.

Then, when the crowd roared the appearance of the next Champion (the Delacour girl, Conner noticed), Wally stood up to give a lightning-quick roar of his own:

"_My best friend is going up against a freaking dragon without any armor and possibly without his utility belt_!"

Conner instinctively caught him by the collar, and he felt the telltale pull of someone with super-speed trying to go from zero to a multiple-zeroes speed in a fraction of a second.

"Wally," Kaldur said firmly. "They only need to get the golden egg. More than daring, this is a task of cunning and stealth, both of which Dick excels at."

"That's right," M'gann said, and Wally calmed down, or at least stopped vibrating, when the Martian took one of his hands in her own, squeezing it. She added in a lower voice, "This is Robin we're talking about, Wally. He's going to be okay."

Wally took a deep breath and settled down at last. M'gann beamed and let his hand go, while Artemis just rolled her eyes, and Conner finally released the back of his shirt, thankful for M'gann's cheerful personality.

"You knew this was going to be dangerous," Conner accused, snorting when a snore from Delacour's dragon and its resulting flame lit the girl's skirt on fire.

"Dude, he's my best friend. Of course I'm going to be worried." His cheeks were very flustered and he avoided their gazes: he obviously hadn't meant to get so ruffled up. Conner recalled that, before seeing the dragon, he'd been pretty content with betting on how fast Dick could get through the first task, and boasting about how they had the tournament in the bag, and how much it sucked that Dick was in it just for show.

A while later, the girl managed to get her egg, and Conner could see Wally relaxing more into his seat. And then he tensed again when they saw Krum's dragon trash about madly after getting shot in the eye with a spell.

"We can always jump in if things get out of hand, yes?"

"Of course, Wally."

It wasn't likely to happen, and the wizards had their own team ready to jump in if things 'got out of hand', but the notion was enough to make Wally calm down, and for that Conner was thankful. They cheered and they gasped and they clapped along with the crowd, and Wally didn't speak again until it came to Potter's turn.

"_Brooms_! Really!"

* * *

><p>"Look at that! Will you look at that! Our second youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!"<p>

Harry let himself be immersed in the praise and the cheer around him, feeling so elated it was a wonder he wasn't dizzy. But the task was over, and so was the dread that had been hunting him ever since his name came out of the goblet. He was almost thankful his first plan had failed: just a few attempts at hitting the dragon's eyes with the conjunctivitis spell had left it clear Harry couldn't get close enough on ground to hit his target. He'd taken a quick retreat and summoned his Firebolt, and that was that.

Sure, he'd gotten a nasty cut on his shoulder, and he let himself be stirred towards the medical tent, but everything had been easier than he'd expected the moment he was up in the air. Then Hermione and Ron were in the tent, congratulating him, and despite Madame Pomfrey's demands that he stay seated, the three of them went out so Harry could get his scores.

"It's marks out of ten from each one," Ron informed him, after a brief explanation of how the other champions had faced their own dragons.

Harry nodded, and turned his gaze over to the six judges. He had to squint, but he could see each of them pretty well.

Madame Maxime, the first of the judges, raised her wand up in the air, and the long silver ribbon that shot out of it twisted itself into a large figure eight. Mr. Crouch was next, and he gave Harry a nine, for which Ron thumped Harry on the back while the crowd applauded. Dumbledore put up a nine as well, but Ludo Bagman gave him a ten.

"What? But... I got hurt..." said Harry in disbelief. "What's he playing at?"

"Harry, don't complain!" Ron yelled, and Hermione gave him an exasperated smile, but she was bouncing on the balls of her feet too.

Karkaroff raised his wand, and after a contemplative pause, a number shot out of his want as well: four.

Ron was furious, and complained very loudly about it. "You lousy, biased scumbag, you have Krum ten!" he said. Up on the stands and a bit to his right, Harry could also hear a loud "Sell out!" Then the final judge, Zatara, also gave him a nine, which brought Harry's score up to 49.

"You're tied in first place, Harry! You and Krum!" Ron said, waving at someone in the enclosure. The familiar red-haired shape of Charlie Weasley waved back briefly, before returning to his job and helping transport the Hungarian Horntail out.

"Come on, Harry, let's get back to Madame Pomfrey," Hermione said, tugging at his robes and being careful not to pull too close to his once-injured shoulder. But Harry felt fine, his shoulder was just slightly stiff, and he shook his head.

"I want to see Dick compete."

He could already see Hebridean Black being led into the enclosure. He had missed out on the other three champions, but he wanted to watch Dick's run. If he was sincere with himself, he wanted to see him get out alive with his own eyes. His confidence in the tent had been dumbfounding, and Harry wanted to believe he hadn't been overestimating himself.

Hermione tried to get them back to the medical tent still, but Ron and Harry managed to convince her of climbing onto the stands, where Madam Pomfrey would have a harder time spotting Harry and dragging him back in.

They found themselves claiming the seats just a row down from the Houdini students.

"That was great, Harry!" Megan told him, and he smiled at her. "You fly marvelously!"

"It was pretty cool, kid," Artemis said, leaning over the seat in front of her. She shot a fuming Wally a devious look before adding, "We'd all love to try out. We don't have brooms in the Institute, you know. Any chance you could make a bit of time to teach us someday?"

"What? I mean, sure." Harry barely registered what she'd asked, because the fifth and final whistle had sounded, and he fixed his gaze on the spot of the arena where he'd walked in a while ago.

Dick was just stepping into the field, and even with the black dragon before him, he had the gall to look around and wave at the applauding crowd. The dragon was easily 26 feet of demonic-looking bulk, and the kid was fresh as a lettuce.

"And here's our final champion, ladies and gentlemen. And I daresay it'll be hard to outdo Mr. Potter's feat!" Bagman sounded oddly giddy about this, but Harry only had eyes for the scene before him, and tuned him out.

Dick was advancing now, but he stopped a safe distance away from the dragon. His wand was already out, and Harry wanted to smack him for tossing it into the air, up and down, like it was a toy, when it was really the only thing protecting him from the large dragon regarding him from her nest. They seemed to stare at each other for a few seconds longer, before something in Dick's stance shifted.

With a twirl of his wand and a fling of his arm, a screen of smoke suddenly exploded around him. He must've been repeating whatever spell he was using, because the smoke spread out to cover the area around the dragon. Beneath the noises of wonder the crowd was making, Harry thought he heard a disturbing sound – an odd, devious laughter.

The dragon was visibly confused, but when what looked like a pebble hit her on the side of the head, it easily bristled. With a violent roar, her head snapped into the smoke, jaws closing on an invisible prey. The trashing of her head dissipated some of the smoke, and revealed that she'd lunged at air. Agitated, the dragon roared and snapped at the next clump of smoke, obviously hoping to find Richard in it. When that failed, a long jet of fire was sent out instead, covering a wider area and dissipating the smoke as it went.

Hermione was clutching her face again, Ron was gripping the seat in front of his own viciously, and Harry was on the edge of his seat, trying to find Dick amidst the slowly thinning smoke. Where was he?

Suddenly, he spotted movement, right under the dragon.

A small, nimble form had just slipped out from under the dragon's belly, and an impressive somersault landed Dick near the tip of the dragon's arrow-shaped tail.

Becoming aware of the weight suddenly on her tail, the dragon twisted around, flinging her tail hard at the same time and launching its burden off.

Harry watched as Dick became airborne, watched his thin body twist and flip over in the air. The boy curled into himself for his landing and cart-wheeled the rest of the way to the opening of the enclosure, using only one hand to do so. And then Dick was straightening himself, revealing the golden egg held firmly against his chest briefly, before raising it over his head with both hands.

The Hebridean Black was still trying to spot whatever had stepped on her tail, and the crowd had been rendered speechless.

"Three minutes! Three freaking minutes! And not a single scratch! Dude, you're awesome!"

Wally's loud cry was like the cracking of a dam breaking, and the cheer that followed was positively deafening. Harry found himself on his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs as not only relief but disbelieving awe filled him.

It took a while for the crowd to quiet down, and then Bagman corrected himself, in an oddly strained voice, about who had been the quickest Champion to get the egg.

Unsurprisingly, Richard got the highest marks: tens from Dumbledore, Mr. Crouch, and Zatara; nines, one from Madame Maxime and another from Ludo Bagman, who didn't seem as enchanted with Dick as he was with Harry; and a single seven from Karkaroff, who probably couldn't give him any lower marks without seeming even more obviously biased. They amounted with an impressive 55, which landed Dick safely in first place, Harry and Krum tied for Second, and Cedric and Fleur in third and fourth place respectively.

Even though there were no visible wounds on him, Dick was guided over to Madame Pomfrey for a quick check-up before the five champions were called to gather in the tent once more for a word with Mr. Bagman.

"You were amazing, Dick!" Harry said, grinning broadly as they reentered the tent.

"I hear you weren't half bad yourself," Dick laughed, and then he punched Harry's non-wounded arm in a friendly way. "And? Was I right or was I right? Wasn't the wait much worse than the actual performance?"

Harry laughed and had to agree with him: the wait had been immeasurably worse. He'd try to remember it for the next Task, which they were informed would take place until February. They had to solve a puzzle involving the golden egg before the task, so they could properly prepare for the task, but Harry didn't bother worrying about it.

Harry left the tent, rejoined Ron and Hermione, and they started to walk back around the edge of the forest; Harry wanted to hear what the other champions had done in more detail. The Second Task was months away, his friends were by his side, and not even Skeeter's latest attempt at getting a private interview with him could ruin it.

That day, for the first time in a whole month, everything felt completely perfect.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks to everyone for your reviews! They are always very welcome and very appreciated! Glad you're liking this so far. =)<em>


	5. Mystery Egg, Solved

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

Wally, Dick found, had been happy enough to congratulate him and be a loud cheer while they had been around the other students and even all the way back to the Bio-ship. However, ever since they made it to the edge of the forest to board the camouflaged ship, he'd been intent on chewing him out for his actions.

"You didn't wear Kevlar!" he began suddenly, as though the fact had only just registered.

"None of the others did," Dick pointed out. "We were supposed to rely on magic, KF."

"Magic doesn't exist!" Wally shot back, both his hands tugging at his hair.

"It does," said Artemis through clenched teeth.

"And you didn't use it." Kaldur did not look upset, but he did raise his eyebrows at Dick. Shrugging sheepishly, he allowed himself to drop back on one of the reddish chairs of the Bio Ship, dropping the heavy golden egg on his lap. "Those were smoke pellets."

"Guilty as charged."

Now Kaldur frowned lightly, and Dick figured he didn't like their training sessions coming off as a waste. Because outside of that, the fact that Dick had used a few well-hidden smoke pellets wasn't that serious: they were not going to throw him out of the competition just because he'd snuck in a few aids. Their employer wouldn't allow that.

"Did you forget the spell to summon smoke? We also went over how to create mist," Kaldur pointed out.

"I didn't forget," said Dick, rolling his eyes, and hastily throwing an apologetic grin when he remembered they could see it.

Over a month without his mask, but two minutes of somersaulting around a dragon made him forget he wasn't in his Robin costume. He was beginning to miss it, and today had only reminded him how much he'd been holding back this whole time. Their scheduled training sessions just weren't enough.

"No offense, Kaldur, but B's training always takes over when it comes to stealth. I'll try using magic next time." And while Wally huffed and Kaldur sighed, he pulled the golden egg back into attention by rolling it around in his hands. "Anyhow, should we have a look at this thing?" he suggested.

He'd been toying with the thing ever since he'd gotten it, and without any gloves on, he'd easily felt the small ridges running along its surface. It would have been important to notice the longest running ridge, if they hadn't been told already that it could be opened. He had to admit, he was curious about what the wizards considered a good puzzle. So without further ado, he pressed his fingernails into the small opening, and pulled the egg open.

He couldn't hear it above the shrieking din that the egg released into their small living quarters, but he could see the way his friends winced in protest and covered their ears. Roaring loudly in outrage, Conner stomped out of the Bioship. Robin grimaced in sympathy, but he didn't close the egg immediately: one of his teammates, rather than upset or pained, looked contemplative.

Only when Kaldur finally sent him a nod did Robin close the egg again. He had to wait for the ringing in his ears to subdue before he spoke:

"That was about the oddest code I've ever heard. Any clue what it said?"

"Yes. It's a mermish language, not very pleasant to the ears," their leader said, but the pensive look wasn't gone, so even Conner only snorted and waited patiently for whatever he was going to say next. "_Come seek where our voices sound, we cannot sing above ground, while you ponder this, we've taken what you miss; an hour you'll have to look, to recover what we took; passed an hour, the prospect's dark, it's gone, too late, never come back._"

"That's what it said?" Artemis asked in disbelief, still rubbing her palms over her ears. M'gann disappeared for a moment, and came back with a disgruntled-looking Conner.

"My translation might be a bit off," said Kaldur. "Speaking some mermish languages out of the water affects how the sound travels, or how the throat forms the words."

"So we dunk it into a hot tub and listen to it underwater?" Wally suggested, eyeing the egg critically. Changing wavelengths weren't offensive mumbo jumbo, so that must've helped his mood.

"It would explain the first verse. There's a mermish community living in the depths of the Black Lake; I've paid them a few visits in the past month."

Dick nodded, already running the poem over his head. It seemed pretty simple: the mermaids were going to take something, or most likely someone, that was important to him and hide it in the lake. Then he'd have an hour to go and get that person back. It was unlikely that there really would be deathly consequences for whoever they took, but it did place some pressure on the Champions. Still...

"How are they going to get Bruce here?" he wondered idly. When he caught Conner and Wally's looks his way, he said louder: "How am I going to get there? You said the mermaids are in the depths of the lake, and I can only hold my breath for so long."

"Easy. We call Bats and ask him to send a SCUBA set," which sounded like a pretty sound idea.

"Hold on; pellets are one thing, but a SCUBA set? Isn't that going to be a bit too obvious?"

"Well, they didn't say anything about not bringing anything extra this time," Dick offered, after running Bagman's instructions over his mind once more.

"But if they don't allow it, we need a backup plan," Artemis pointed out, and looked expectantly at Kaldur. "Has no one who couldn't breathe underwater visited Atlantis before?"

"They have," the dark-skinned male conceded. "There are several spells that grant the temporary ability to breathe underwater, and some potions and plants that do the same. I'll have to see which are the easiest to learn or attain, and I'll let you know as soon as I'm certain."

That was good enough with Robin. He wasn't horrible at magic, per se, but his 'magical core', as Kaldur and Zatara called it, wasn't particularly impressive.

Wally's was by far the strongest one, even when compared to someone like Kaldur, who had been practicing magic for years; Zatara theorized his contact with Doctor Fate had something to do with that. Conner and M'gann were next: their problem wasn't so much that they were weak, but their cores were highly differentiated towards one type of magic. M'gann was a natural in Transfiguration, while Conner... well, they weren't too sure what to call it, but it heavily affected magical and non-magical animals alike. It took a lot of effort to gear their magic towards something else, and there lay their disadvantage. Dick and Artemis were the last in the power scale. Weaker than the average magic user, but still potent enough for most spells they'd stumble into needing in the mission.

"All's set, then," he said, letting Wally take the golden egg from his hands and lifting his feet onto the low table the Bioship had created for the makeshift living room they were standing on. "I suggest we move the next point to Mad-Eye Moody."

* * *

><p>December finally reached the grounds of Hogwarts, delivering cold winds and chilly rain that made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. With its large windows and wide hallways, Hogwarts was always very drafty during this season, but it seemed to be by far the warmest place available to sleep in. The large boat floating amidst the icy Black Lake didn't look half as cozy as the castle, and Harry didn't imagine the Beauxbaton's carriage was any better. He wasn't even sure where the Houdini students slept; after a chat with Hermione and Ron, they had to assume they had found lodging somewhere in Hogsmeade.<p>

Harry had been meaning to ask Dick about it, but with the First Task looming over his head, he hadn't gotten around to doing it. And although they shared Care of Magical Creatures with another of the visiting students, it wasn't smart to let one's mind wander around the Skrewts.

There were about fifteen skrewts left by the week after the First Task, and Harry had the suspicion they only had this many because of Kent. While no one in the class was even remotely thankful to him for this, even the Slytherins seemed to appreciate the large student's presence in the class.

"I told you they didn't seem like the type to hibernate," said Kent, as calmly as if he were speaking about the climate. A grunt was the only thing in his voice that gave away the fact he was currently picking up a blast-ended skrewt around the middle, and lifting it away from Harry and Ron's way.

"Where were you?" Ron demanded, hand against his chest and unbelieving eyes on Kent. The brooding male only rolled his eyes before depositing the monster on its pen, only after Hagrid had tied a rope around its large body.

The creatures were reaching the six feet in length, and with time their stingers and suckers had only grown more dangerous. Their gray armored bodies were harder, too, and while the students could keep them at bay with red sparks of their wands if they ever got cornered by them, Kent was the only person in the class apart from Hagrid who could manhandle them without getting dragged along by them. The way he could glare them into submission was nothing other than impressive, too, and Harry was beginning to suspect there was magic involved.

Hagrid had begun that day's class with the proposal that they should see whether the skrewts hibernated or not. They didn't. They also didn't appreciate being put into pillow-lined boxed and nailed in.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a few other students had soon been left to help Hagrid round up the beasts, while the rest of the class took refuge in Hagrid's wooden cabin. They had managed to round up a couple of them when Kent, who'd been absent all class, had finally shown up.

He'd literally begun plucking the skrewts off the ground, making their previous effort look pathetic in comparison. Harry was thankful, though: in the end, it meant less burns than he could have gotten. The pumpkin patch was completely destroyed and the wooden crates were a mess, but that couldn't be helped.

"Sorry, got held up," he said, but his eyes weren't on Hagrid or even the skrewt.

Hermione tugged on Harry's cloak, and he turned to see magenta-clad Rita Skeeter leaning against Hagrid's garden fence. She was smiling so that all of her golden teeth were visible, eyes locked on to the Houdini student. She opened her mouth to say something, but Kent beat her to it.

"You're not supposed to be here," he said, arms crossed over his chest in that way that made him look twice as imposing as he was. And considering his size and muscles, he was pretty imposing already. "I told you to quit following Richard."

"Dear child, I don't know what you're talking about," the woman said while she fingered her crocodile purse, her eyes moving from the student's firm position to the many creatures skittering around the remains of the pumpkin batch.

"Who're you?" Hagrid asked, looking warily at the reporter.

"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," she replied, although not bothering to turn her beaming smile to Hagrid. "So, Conner, taking Care of Magical Creatures, are you? And you seem quite adept at handling these fascinating creatures. But none of your friends seem to be here."

Even as she said it, her eyes wandered over the grounds hungrily, and Harry felt dread build up in him when she finally spotted him. If anything, the gleam in her eyes got brighter.

"Ah, you're here, Harry!"

There was suddenly a wall of muscle before him, obscuring his view of Rita.

"You're not allowed to speak to him either," said Kent curtly. And despite how thankful he felt not to be in Skeeter's focus anymore, Harry really wanted to protest: he could take care of himself.

"Now, now, Conner—"

"You can't call me by my name. We're not friends." Harry tilted sideways to look past Kent's broad back, and saw Rita's smile had grown strained. Strained and sharp, but with the glint in her eyes as strong and as malicious as ever. Either he didn't notice it, or he wasn't worried by it, because the next thing Kent snapped was, "Leave."

"Aren't you a little ray of sunshine. I certainly hope that attitude of yours won't bring you any trouble in the future."

There was no reply, and Rita left shortly after, head held high and fingers still dancing across the crocodile skin of her purse.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Hermione as they set off to the castle after a stomping Conner. "She's a reporter – she could write all sort of bad things about you."

"Don't care." Harry noticed him looking towards the Forbidden Forest, considering it for a moment, before shaking his head and continuing on his way to the castle.

"What held you?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

They didn't usually chat with Kent, but he was very nice to Hagrid, and he'd never been rude towards them. And he _had_ just blocked Rita's attempt at talking to Harry. Despite the threatening scowl he wore often, he wasn't a bad guy at all, just a bit short-fused.

"Homework," was the reply, but the contemplative pause before the answer made it suspicious.

"Before classes?" Ron asked incredulously. Besides, almost none of the professors left homework for them, seeing they didn't have to do their coursework if they didn't want to.

"It was important homework," Kent added with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Oh."

The three of them shuffled awkwardly behind him, his shape towering theirs easily. Ron had wondered aloud, just a few days ago, whether Kent might be related to Hagrid somehow. Harry didn't think so, because Hagrid would have mentioned having family that loved strange creatures as much as he did. And even when Kent was large, he wasn't huge, like the groundkeeper. He certainly seemed to have the same strength as Hagrid, though, if not more. For the second time that day, Harry wondered if it was a natural thing.

"I've been meaning to ask," said Hermione just as they reached the castle's entrance, perhaps fearing their quiet companion would part ways with them. "What exactly is alternative magic?"

Kent gave Hermione a look that looked about as puzzled as Harry felt. Hermione flustered slightly, but held the gaze.

"I've been looking into the history of the Houdini Institute, and while its very interesting, they keep mentioning alternative magic without actually explaining what it is. I've been thinking it could be talking about specialized magic, which I've also read on before. It would explain why your courses are different than ours, but I'm really not sure if I'm right. So I wanted to ask if you could clear it up for me."

Hermione's voice got a bit dimmer with every word, but Harry thought the scowl on Kent's face looked more thoughtful than hostile. After a whole minute of silence and his friend growing fidgety, Harry was going to jump in and offer they leave or they'd be late for classes. But after a bit more of silence, Kent did give an answer:

"It's like wandless, highly differentiated magic." After a moment of thought, he also added, "Everyone's is different. That's why it can't be defined as a single thing."

"Oh," the bushy-haired girl looked thoughtful once more, giving a slow nod of understanding.

"So the jumping and twirling Dick did in the First Task was magic?" Ron asked, sounding a bit impressed.

Harry was going to tell him that it wasn't likely, and that muggles could do that sort of thing, too. But then, would someone Richard's age be so good at it? He'd almost looked like he was flying.

"Kind of," Kent allowed, looking thoughtful again. "I need to go now."

"We need to get to Divination," Ron added, nudging Harry along while Hermione said goodbye to the three of them and darted off towards Professor Vector's class.

They'd lost a bit of time while chatting with Kent, so they had to rush up the last flight of stairs. Breathless, they plopped down on the cushions of the smelly and dimly-lit Divination classroom, just in time for Professor Trelawny to sweep in to greet them to another boring day in her class. Harry pulled out his star chart, wondering in what horrid ways he was going to die today.

"Well, that explains why Conner likes Hagrid's pets so much," Ron muttered next to him, when Trelawney's back was turned towards them.

"How?"

"Well, the bloke must be indestructible or something," said Ron, as if it was the most simple deduction in the world.

Harry shook his head. "No, he must have super strength. That's how he picks up the skrewts so easily."

"Maybe," said Ron, lips splitting into a grin. "Maybe he's got both. And he's some sort of super-wizard. And he goes around glaring bad monsters into submission."

Harry had to stifle a small burst of laughter at that, which Trelawney thankfully didn't notice.

Conner Kent, Superwizard. It sounded fitting, somehow.

* * *

><p>With the exception of Miss Martian, who could turn invisible at will, Robin was the best spy they had on the team. There was no stealth mode for Robin: Robin <em>was<em> stealth-mode.

Wally could recall too easily the way he'd suddenly disappear in the middle of a mission, only to reappear behind their enemies, delivering well-placed hits to the back of their heads. He'd never understand how he managed it, particularly wearing the same shade of yellow in his inner cape that Kid Flash did in his whole costume, and the red wasn't too subtle either. But the fact remained, he was the first choice when you needed to quietly follow someone.

Which was why he seemed so bothered lately. Not that the rest of the team could tell, but Wally did. They were bros, after all.

"It's that stupid eye of his," his friend said, tossing an apple up into the air, catching it on his palm, then twirling it to balance it on one finger. "It doesn't matter if he doesn't notice me, that thing does it for him."

From what Dick was telling him, he'd tried sneaking up on him a few times, and gotten yelled at for his trouble ("CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"). He'd always tried these little sneaks during daylight, and always nearby crowded places, like lone corridors near the ones with constant traffic. Everyone knew of Professor Moody's paranoia by now, so he could pass his experimenting at catching him off-guard as attempts to pull a prank on him.

So far, Robin had failed three out of three times. And that was three times more fails than usual.

"Can his eye see Megan, too?" Wally asked, through half a mouthful of a chocolate pastry he'd gotten from the kitchens. The rest of his loot sat between them on a spread napkin, and though they had everything from peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches to cookies and candy, Dick had only picked the one apple.

The only Bat-endorsed snack, he supposed.

"Don't know. Probably. Those things are supposed to be able to see even invisible things."

"So we need to confirm first before trying anything."

"Yeah, told Kaldur as much. We can't risk sending her to spy on him alone if he's really the enemy. We need to keep as many of our cards hidden as possible."

"Mhm," was his own response, and he looked around the small courtyard in the lull of conversation.

The corridors had been deserted just a second ago, but a class must have ended, because Wally could see all those children in dark cloaks flooding them now. It wasn't as heavy a traffic as in his own high-school, but maybe it just was the fact these corridors were much grander. That was why they made an effort to split into small teams and spread around the grounds, to keep them better watched. Although it had become very obvious past the first month, that not much was going to happen. Their night rounds had been reduced on Zatara's suggestion, and most of their daily rounds consisted on lounging around, pretending to be normal students while hoping to catch something strange going on.

Dick had reported Mad Eye's interest in him almost immediately, and a few days later, he'd been able to confirm the man's even greater interest in Harry Potter.

"Can I have one of those?" And now they just happened to have Harry Potter's friend right there. They had made up almost immediately after Wally had first spoken to him, too. He must be a miracle worker or something, because he hadn't seen them fight since.

"Help yourself," Wally said, waving grandly to his stash, and hoping Ron knew how lucky he was he was sharing his lot. But lunch would come around in an hour or two, so Wally was positive he could survive if he gave his fellow redhead some pastries.

"Ron, you're going to ruin your appetite." Their bushy-haired friend was here now, too. Artemis had mentioned her name before, and it had been an odd one, too.

"It's good, Hermione. I doubt anything can ruin the appetite of bottomless pits such as these two," Dick piped up, finally biting into his apple.

"At least they could snack healthy," the girl sniffed, eying the apple before looking over to the classroom they'd probably come from.

Wally thought she was a bit bossy, like Artemis. He didn't think he'd ever seen Artemis's hair so blown up before, though, not even after a mission.

"Want some?" he offered with a grin when she turned her eyes on him, holding a small cupcake to her. She shook her head without even thinking about it, so Wally shrugged and popped the sweet treat into his mouth.

"So where's Harry?" Dick asked, pulling himself up from the stone bench he'd been laying on. It was wide enough for Wally to sit on the other edge and still have room for the pastries between them. "I thought you were in all classes with him."

Wally knew Dick wasn't asking out of simple curiosity, so he allowed his eyes to drift over the small streams of shivering students still moving along the corridors. They knew what a high target Harry Potter was, so they had to be extra careful with him. The old man, Dumbledore, had been particularly interested in his safety; though that concern of his was causing more trouble than not. After all, according to Dumbledore, Alastor Moody was also in the school to protect Harry; this meant they couldn't go to him with their suspicions on that particular member of the staff, not until they had some solid proof.

"There he is," the speedster cut in before either of the wizards could respond, jerking his head towards the corridor. He'd just come out of a classroom, and he looked about as bummed out as Wally had ever seen someone look.

"What did McGonagall want to talk to you about?" Hermione asked, once Ron had caught their friend's attention and he'd come over to their little group.

"McGonagall says I need a partner for the Yule Ball."

It was said so quietly Wally almost didn't catch it. The boy's face turned a dark hue of red when he was asked to repeat himself, and Wally laughed loudly when he did, because the look on his face was just that priceless.

"Ah, so they told you too," said Dick. He had to kick Wally in the shin for him to stop laughing so boisterously. "The champions are going to be opening the ball, right? Makes sense why you need one."

"You mean you've already gotten one?" Harry asked, sounding disbelieving.

"You wound me," Dick winced, but smiled brightly before the spectacled boy could apologize. "Yeah, man, I've got one already. Asked as soon as Zatara told me."

Wally had to stifle another round of laugher. He found his fist in his mouth was a good gag.

"At least that's one less thing to worry about," Ron muttered, eyeing a group of giggly girls that were just passing through the courtyard, sending both Harry and Dick strange looks with fluttery eyelids. That sobered Wally immediately.

"Man, never thought I'd see the day you got more female attention than me," he sighed, running a hand through his short red hair. "This whole boarding-school thing is seriously messing up The Wallster's swag."

"You didn't have it to begin with," Dick snorted.

"You know, Harry, if there's someone you like, you should ask them quickly, too," Hermione was saying, giving Harry a meaningful look. Harry's eyes had been following yet another pack of girls, these wearing blue and copper colored ties. His cheeks got a bit red at his friend's comment, and his attempt at feigning obliviousness was commendably bad.

"HP's got a crush?" Wally asked, standing up and wrapping an arm around the shorter boy's shoulders. "Let the Wallster give you some advice on how to woo the ladies, then!"

"Please don't follow it unless you want the girl in question to never speak to you again," Dick jumped in before Harry could look too hopeful.

He felt Harry's shoulders slump under his arm, and Ron's face also fell: it seemed the both of them were clueless as they could get about girls. Wally felt for them, he really did. Not everyone could be as confident about ladies as he was. Sure, it hadn't helped much with Miss Martian, but Wally liked to think she was immune because she was from another planet. He had swag, but not that MUCH swag.

"I'm more concerned about dancing, to be honest. I don't dance." Harry's tone sounded so defeated, Wally thought his own shoulders were going to slump down.

"I'll teach you."

Ron's eyes were critic on Wally's short friend.

"You dance?" he asked, and got an elbow to the side from Hermione.

"Yeah, I've been to a bunch of balls before." And being the protégée of Bruce Wayne, it was only expected he'd know how to dance. Charity case or no, all the influential figures in Gotham would love their daughters to dance with Richard Grayson, hoping the way into the boy's teenage heart would also open a seam in his guardian's wallet. "It's not that hard, come on."

Suddenly Harry had been taken from under his arm, and Wally settled back down on the bench while Dick placed an horrified Harry's hands on his waist. He was going to bust a gut with his effort not to laugh, and he nearly lost it when he saw Ron's identical look.

"Eh, Dick, this—"

"What, you want to be the girl?" Richard asked with an arch of his eyebrows, hands settled on Harry's shoulders. They were about the same size, so either way would work. There was no reply, so he nodded. "That's what I thought. Now, watch my feet, it goes like this. One, two, three... one, two three; Harry, you need to start moving already. One, two, three..."

Wally couldn't help it: he laugher louder than he'd had in months, falling back off the stone bench while holding his stomach. That probably attracted more curious looks than Dick's little troll ways, but he didn't care.

And to be completely fair, Harry probably wasn't worrying about getting a partner anymore.


	6. The Yule Ball

_Apologies for the long wait, I haven't abandoned this. I also apologize in advance: I haven't proof-read this chapter enough, particularly the last part.  
><em>

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

Between the excitement of the Yule Ball coming up and the break from classes that winter break would bring, the students of Hogwarts were not really in the right mindset to carry on with their classes. All of the professors noticed this, and yet only a few of them actually let them get away with lazing off in class.

For example, Professor Flitwick, being the understanding man he was, had allowed them to chatter and practice simple charms through his last class, while talking with Harry about the marvelous summoning charm he'd performed during the First Task. Hagrid, too, was being way more lenient with letting them do nothing in his classes. Though that probably had something to do with the fact the Blast-Ended Skrewts were now too large for anyone except him and Conner to handle, so the most they did in class was pick out random food to give the beasts while the Houdini student convinced Hagrid the Skrewts needed a bath. Hagrid had been eager to try out Conner's suggestion, and the girls were treated to the sight of Conner Kent's muscular chest when, during the end of the class, he took off his dripping shirt to try and wring it out.

Hermione had gotten a few glares when she offered to dry it via magic, which she had ignored with cheeks red as tomatoes. That particular class had been a bit strange.

And the weirdness did not stop there, either. It was expected of professors like McGonagall and Snape to continue drilling their class until the very last second of class, and no one had doubted they would, even if they were annoyed and disappointed by it. But while the students in the Potions classroom worked tirelessly to try to get the concoctions in their cauldrons dark green, there was something missing in the atmosphere.

Harry wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been in the class himself. Professor Snape, well known for his blatant favoritism towards his own class and his intolerance for misbehaving, had failed to deliver his daily quota of at least ten snarky remarks to the Gryffindor half of his class. Half of that quota was usually directed at Harry, but while the Potions Master would sneer disdainfully when his eyes landed on Harry, he had not been as unpleasant as usual.

"That's not going to work, dude, the book says you need to slice it into even parts."

"I know what the book says. I also know that mincing it into fine bits will work best than just adding thick slices to the mix. See, I made some notes about that last class—"

"Yeah, yeah, I read them. I know where you're coming from, and it would make for more efficient use of ingredients, but you can't switch that up without unbalancing the whole reaction. You're just going to end up with a big mess-"

"No, man, just listen: that's why I asked you to bring the extra dusted beetle, because its properties—"

"They will even out the effect of the knotgrass while still adding potency to the product! Awesome."

"Glad you appreciate my genius. Make sure to grind it well, I want that powder as thin as you can make it."

"I'm on it. Think it will work?"

"Well, if it doesn't, at least it's not explosive."

"Good enough for me."

Harry glanced up from the cauldron he was stirring to look at the table two rows front and to his left. Normally, whispering as loud as that was met with heavy point deduction, unless the students in question were Slytherins. As it was, Professor Snape not only ignored the excited whispers, but lingered around the front of the classroom to keep his eyes on the pair of students that were causing it.

He didn't know how Wally and Dick had done it, but they'd somehow gotten into Snape's good side. A side the students hadn't been aware existed.

A dubious-looking Wally and an easy-going Dick had popped up into their first Potions class almost a month ago, shortly after arriving to Hogwarts. Snape had taken one look at them, and his lip had twisted nastily when he caught sight of West's red hair. He'd told them, in a none-too-hushed tone, he was not going to let ignorant fools into a fourth-year class if they had no previous experience in the subject. He'd also added, rather scathingly, that they should consider joining the first-years instead.

It had been an obvious jeer, and everyone knew it, even Wally and Dick. But rather than turn away from the class and never return, which Harry would have done after his first Potions class if he'd been given the option, the pair had taken his words as a challenge.

It wasn't until today that they joined the fourth year class, both wearing white lab coats, rubber gloves, and plastic goggles that Dick always left hanging around his neck, despite Wally's persistent nagging to pull them on. They looked as out of place as they had when they first walked into Hogwarts, and they got several curious looks from the students as the class dragged on.

Every so often, Wally would raise a gloved hand into the air, and proceed to ask hushed questions to Snape when he came over. Professor Snape would inspect their work with a scowl, before finally giving a few biting words regarding their performance.

Harry was considering the possibility that Snape had a secret code only the Houdini students could understand, because rather than look put-out by his words, Wally would smack his own forehead and Dick would get a glint in his eye, and they were back to animated whispers, as if instead of being handed thinly-veiled insults, Snape had just given them a precious epiphany. For all the rest of the students knew he might as well have.

"It's highly advanced Potion-Making Theory," Hermione relied on to him and Ron later that evening, at the Gryffindor common room. "It's the sort of thing you need to know to be a Potions Master – theory towards creating or enhancing new potions."

"So you're saying Wally and Dick are Potion Masters?" Ron asked with disbelief, and Harry furrowed hise yebrows. He knew both of them were smarter than average, but this seemed a bit over-the-top.

"Of course not, they're too young. But they're using the theory to experiment with their coursework."

Harry lifted his gaze from his book (_Flying with the Cannons_) to give Hermione a dubious look, but she hadn't even looked up from her own book, which made Harry's look like a thin magazine. It looked brand new, or would have if not for the dog-eared pages it was already sporting in its pages.

"What are you reading?" he asked, because the freshly-bound leather book didn't look like it belonged in the Hogwarts' Library. He immediately regretted the question when his friend looked up, a strange light in her eyes.

"Oh, it's very interesting! It's called _The Magical Core: a Metaphysical Look into Magic_, by Alan Fletcher. He's a muggleborn, Harry, but he's been studying magic from a scientific standpoint for the past twenty years. Most of what's in this book is just theory, and it's really hard to understand, but—"

"What?" Ron interrupted, and his pause allowed the castle of Exploding Snap cards to blow off right in his face. He coughed and pushed away the remains of the cards, not yet noticing his eyebrows had been singed off. "_You,_ finding a book hard to understand?"

Hermione became flustered, pushing a few strands of wild brown hair behind her ear.

"Yes, well, I haven't read much about physics since coming to Hogwarts, so I don't understand most of it." Harry had no doubt she would fix that as soon as possible. "But It's a very refreshing point of view on magic! Wally gave it to me just a few days ago as an early Christmas present."

"Why would he give you a present?"

They were on friendly terms with the Houdini students, yes, but that was a bit too familiar.

"Remember when Professor Snape didn't want to admit them into his class a few months back?" Harry and Ron nodded. "I told Wally about some books in the library they could use to study. One in particular that I found very helpful, about the basics of Potions Theory. They must have liked that one and got advanced books on the subject. He must have wanted to return the favor."

"I didn't figure Wally the type to give _books_ for Christmas," said Ron, a note of disappointment in his voice.

* * *

><p>"Would you drop that book already, Kid Prat?"<p>

"Well, _someone_'s learning some new insults." Wally closed the book anyway, and they all huddled together a bit closer under the large oak for their mission discussions. Normally, these took place at the Bioship, but they had recently discovered the ship's limitations when it came to prolonged exposure to chilling temperatures.

It wasn't like the ship sustained any sort of damage from being permanently parked on the snow that surrounded the castle, but they might turn into popsicles if they had to spend another night sleeping in it. Oh, the ship could modulate it's temperature, but that required energy they might need later for a quick escape. This was the first time they'd taken the ship to such a long-term mission, and also the first they'd used it as living quarters. So they really hadn't known what to expect.

"Can't we talk about this inside?" Artemis sighed, revealing the reason for her irritation as she rubbed her arms through her thick jacket.

"Not until Zatara makes sure our rooms haven't been magically-bugged," Dick piped, graciously unwinding the scarf around his neck to hand it over. Superboy's hulking shape was good enough to shield him against the wind, anyway. "You know, since there's people at the castle that _would_ do that."

Despite nearly two months of stake-out and investigation, they still had a list of suspicious people to look out for that was longer than they'd prefer. Two of those people, Alastor Moody and Severus Snape, happened to be at the castle all around the clock.

"This might be our chance to keep a closer eye on them," Kaldur pointed out. Out of all of them, he seemed to be the most at ease in the cold.

"Snape's a tame beast; he's also got an alibi for the time when someone could've put HP's name on the Goblet," Wally informed them.

He'd found his first zone of intellectual comfort within the magic-science that was Potions, so of course he was a bit biased, but Dumbledore had also told them the bare bones of the man's story early into their investigation. After plenty of interactions with the Potions Master, Dick was inclined to agree with Wally: the man wasn't much of a threat to anything but his own hair. And the self-esteem of the more impressionable younger years.

"I've got Moody covered," Dick offered. Which wasn't completely true, but he was getting there.

Their latest plan for spying on Mad-Eye had failed. Evidently, his eye could see even invisible objects, so they were lucky M'gann had been trying to approach by foot and not flying.

Wally had been talking to the professor after he'd come out of his last class for the semester, while an invisible M'gann approached quietly from behind. Moody had turned around and thrown a _Finite_ at M'gann so fast, the girl had been startled into visibility. They got told off with a lecture on CONSTANT VIGILANCE; they'd also been told to "stop going along with Grayson's childish games," because they weren't going to get one over him.

_Well_, Dick thought, _challenge accepted_.

"Do you require our cooperation for anything?" Kaldur asked, which was appreciated, but it wouldn't do for Moody to be suspicious of the whole group.

"I've got some ideas, but nothing you guys should get involved in so far."

"If you need anything at all, we'll be happy to help," M'gann assured eagerly, and Dick gave her an easy grin in response.

"Which leaves Karkaroff, Crouch, and Bagman."

Other than the two shady professors at school, their list of suspects still included most of the judges for the Tournament. Madame Maxime's background check had come up clean, so they had decided to focus on those with criminal ties or, in Bagman's case, troublesome debts. Zatara's contacts in the magical world were proving to be as useful as Batman's information network back home.

"Bagman's obviously rooting for Potter," Artemis said immediately, her nose scrunched in disgust. "I'll bet you anything he'd sell the kid off to Death Eaters for the right price. He could've been paid to put in his name, too. People do all sort of stupid things when they're desperate for money."

"Karkaroff used to be on the enemy's side, though," Conner finally joined the conversation. His arms were crossed firmly over his chest, and he hadn't complained once since they'd come to sit here, but they could tell he was cold too, because he didn't say anything when Dick and M'gann perched closer to him. "And he's always acting like he's got something to hide."

"Anyone would be fidgety if they saw you starting at them like you usually do, dude," Wally pointed out, almost vibrating in place and looking like he pretty much wanted someone to be perching against him instead. The idea of cuddling with Kaldur or Artemis didn't seem as appealing to him, though.

"So your money's on Crouch?" Artemis sounded dubious and a bit challenging. Crouch had a questionable past, but it wasn't so much about him as it was about his dead son. The only reason he was still a suspect at all was his importance to the Tournament.

"No way; my money's on Moody." Which was why he was Dick's best bro. "I'm just saying, Conner needs to be a bit more subtle when he's on surveillance."

"Because you're all about subtlety."

"I'll have you know I'm great at surveillance!"

"We're getting off-track," Kaldur chided them, raising an eyebrow at the bickering duo. Wally rubbed at his reddening nose, and Artemis just huffed and pulled Dick's scarf higher on her face. "Wally, if you feel a different approach might be useful on Mr. Karkaroff, you may keep tabs on him instead."

Before Wally could even protest the decision, Conner was nodding his approval with a nasty little smirk on his face. "I could use a break from that."

So that was settled. Wally grunted about having to keep watch over a freaking freezing boat in the middle of a freaking freezing lake, but at least he had a good book to read during his breaks.

* * *

><p>The remaining week leading to Christmas went by in a blur. Harry did not make any progress with either his homework (an enormous amount of it, too, as thought the professors considered the long essays a good present for the holidays) or the golden egg, which continued sitting at the top of his school trunk, unbothered. But then, he hadn't made much progress in any other front, either.<p>

Cho Chang, the pretty Ravenclaw seeker he'd been meaning to ask to the Ball, was going with no other than Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts-Hufflepuff Champion. Parvati Patil said he'd go with him when he asked later, and her sister would go with Ron, but it just wasn't the same. It was almost enough for him to give up on his dancing lessons with Richard, but the only thing more embarrassing than learning ball dances from a thirteen year old boy would be not to know how to dance at all in front of the whole school.

So every day after lunch, he'd drop by what was now dubbed "The Houdini Common Room", which was little more than a magically-expanded classroom near the Entrance Hall the Houdini students would be using as dorm rooms for the remainder of the cold months. Their lodging place had some heating problems, and Professor Dumbledore had only been too happy to give them housing in the castle.

The small group of six students (no one had any idea where their Deputy Headmaster resided) were in charge of themselves and the password for the tapestry concealing the classroom door. Within the week, Harry had heard over a dozen different passwords, which meant they had to be changing it at least twice a day. Most of the time, they didn't even tell each other what the new password was, but the tapestry always provided a clue in the form of a single sentence.

When asked about it, Wally said they weren't being paranoid, they just had nothing better to do but come up with increasingly ridiculous code words for the tapestry.

Last Harry had heard, it was "scaly undies." He didn't know the story behind that, but it had Richard's cheeks burning and his friends snickering when they thought he wasn't looking.

They'd cut the dancing lessons short that day.

He didn't see Dick or any of the Houdini students until the next day, which happened to be Christmas. Harry, Ron, and Hermione arrived to breakfast in the great hall to see the Houdini students crowded at the Gryffindor table rather than Hufflepuff's.

"Merry Christmas!" Megan greeted them, looking more cheerful than they'd ever seen her, and holding out three lumpy packages towards them. "Presents for you!"

She looked eager to see their reaction, so they opened the packages to find hand-knit wool scarves with strange patterns in Gryffindor colors. Harry could see similar scarves being worn through the Hufflepuff table, a few more among the Ravenclaws, and he thought he'd spotted a familiar lumpy package sitting next to Millicent Bulstrode at the Slytherin table. The brutish-looking girl looked less disgruntled than usual that morning.

"Thank you," Hermione said while pulling it around her neck. The wool was very soft, so Harry put it on too, and even Ron followed along when Wally caught his eyes and gestured meaningfully.

They sat down next to them on the table, and Harry noticed Megan wasn't the only one looking unusually cheery. The holiday spirit seemed to be high in the small group, and even Conner Kent was smiling broadly as he chatted with Kal Durham. Wally was handing out Kit Kat candy bars to everyone he knew, and Harry's group also got Snicker chocolate bars. Ron looked intrigued with the muggle candy, so Wally handed him a few extra to mail home. In return, Harry and Ron promised to share what Mrs. Weasley had mailed them later.

"And this is from the rest of us, with a special something for Ron" Dick said at last, passing over two boxes of fancy chocolates for Harry and Hermione, and a wrapped gift for Ron.

Their friend's ears were red, but he didn't waste time tearing away the neat wrapping paper. Whatever he found inside left him speechless, and Harry tilted his head to look into the box. He laughed, though Ron paid him no mind, instead pulling the cloth out reverently.

"New dress robes. Without cuffs!"

Looking over at Dick, Harry found him grinning impishly.

"Harry might have mentioned your predicament once or twice during our lessons."

Ron didn't speak, but the Houdini students were likely his favourite people in the castle right then. He promised he'd get them something from Zonkos next time they were allowed to go to Hogsmead, even when both Dick and Kal reassured him it wasn't necessary. They returned to their common room for the rest of the morning, where Ron alternated between eating through half of Harry's chocolates and admiring his new dress robes.

Harry wanted to send the remaining fancy chocolates to Sirius, but wasn't sure the muggle treats would last the whole trip via owl (he didn't even know how Dick and Wally had gotten their candy stocks delivered, because they never got owl mail in the morning), so he shared the rest with Neville, Seamus, and Dean. He used the remaining time before lunch to write a letter to Sirius, and after lunch the Weasley twins roped him and Ron into a snowball fight outside the castle. Hermione left early to get ready for the Ball, but Harry and the rest didn't follow until there was only an hour left for preparations.

Despite the fact that all of them had proper dress robes for the evening, Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus all looked very nervous after changing into them. Ron kept glancing from his new robes to the old set he'd left lying atop his trunk, obviously gathering courage from the comparison.

When they went down to the common room, Ron's older brothers were quick to take note of his new robes.

"Wherever did you get those glimmering robes from, Ron?" Fred asked, eyebrows raised.

Ron looked down in alarm, as if fearing his globes were indeed shining, and George examined the fabric by rubbing a sleeve between his fingers. "Good quality, too. Don't tell me you begged Mom and Dad to buy you new ones?"

"We were looking forward to seeing you in lace," bemoaned Fred.

"Shut up, you prats," Ron said, jerking his arm away from his brother. "It was a gift."

"Richard Grayson paid for it," Ginny offered, walking up to them while fussing with the hem of her sleeve. She looked very nice in her pale robes and hair held up with cutesy hairpins.

"How'd you figure that?"

"Crock and Morse came to ask me and Hermione advice on what type of robe to get you. Crock said we didn't need to worry about prices, because Grayson would be paying for it. She said he was loaded."

Harry's eyebrows arched. Dick didn't act like a rich kid. But then, when Harry thought 'rich', his first thought was Draco Malfoy, who couldn't be more different from the Houdini Champion if he actively tried.

"Is he now?" Fred asked, sharing a look with George.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Of course, dear brother." They straightened each other's dress robes pompously with matching, growing grins. "We need to have a talk with our future possible investor tonight."

"Richard is a fellow prankster, isn't he?"

"I don't know. And what do you mean, investor?" Ron repeated, looking warily between his older brothers. He got a pat on the head for his efforts.

"Nothing you need to worry about, Ronnikins. Go and enjoy the Ball as you would."

"Yes, Harry, I believe your cute date's waiting for you over there."

And so she was. Parvati stood by the portrait entrance, looking pretty in her pink robes, dark hair speckled with gold, and gold bracelets hugging her wrists loosely. Wally had been listing off proper compliments to use with cute girls all week, but in that moment, Harry forgot all of them. He did manage an awkward "You look nice," though, and that seemed to please Parvati.

Hermione was nowhere to be seen, but Padma would be waiting for them at the entrance hall and it was getting late, so they made their way downstairs quickly. The large hall was crowded with people from all the houses just waiting for the doors of the Great Hall to open. Most of Beauxbaton's students were already there, including a very stunning Fleur Delacour.

Little over two weeks ago, Ron had asked Fleur to the Ball in the middle of a packed hallway (something Harry assured him was because of the girl being part Veela), so his redhead friend almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to stay out of her view.

Padma Patil, who'd found them almost as soon as they arrived, seemed to find this very funny. She laughed as she pulled Ron's arm for him to straighten, patting wrinkles away from his brand new robes. Ron's ears turned red, but being so close to a girl as pretty as Padma seemed to take his mind off the incident with Fleur momentarily.

Students continued arriving to the entrance hall, but no matter how much he craned his neck, Harry couldn't spot Hermione.

"Champions over here, please!" Professor McGonagall's voice came over the crowd.

Harry and a beaming Parvati said, "See you in a bit," to Ron and Padma and walked over to the professor. Most of the Champions were already there. Fleur Delacour was the closest to the door, accompanied by Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain. Cedric and Cho were next to them, and Harry purposefully avoided looking at them, instead focusing on the little group he hadn't noticed past the crowd before.

It seemed to be a custom already, but the Houdini students stood in a loose circle next to their champion, chatting amiably and looking completely out of place. The two girls in the group had come not with robes, but elegant dresses; Megan's dress didn't look completely muggle-made, though, with its flowing dark cloth that shimmered like tiny stars had been woven into it. All of the boys wore dark suits, except for Wally: the redhead stood out among his friends in a pure-white suit he looked quite proud of.

"You look ridiculous," Artemis was informing him when Harry and Parvati got there.

"You say that, but inside you seethe with jealousy," Wally smirked, fixing his black bow-tie while Dick snorted into his closed fist.

"Oh, Hermione! You look so beautiful!"

Harry turned around upon hearing Megan's excited squeal, and turned around to see her holding a pretty girl's hands and almost jumping in excitement. Hold on.

"Hermione?" Harry blinked. Yes, the pretty girl standing in front of Megan, next to Viktor Krum himself, was Hermione. But she looked completely different than usual, wit her hair sleek and shiny and pulled back into a knot, and the floaty periwinkle-blue robes she'd donned for the night. She was smiling nervously, but Megan's fuss over her appearance was obviously encouraging her.

"Thank you, Megan," she said, and then she caught Harry's eyes and smiled at him too. "Hi, Harry! Hi, Parvati!"

"All the Champions and their companions are to wait here," McGonagall's voice pulled them back to reality a moment later, giving no time for unbelieving stares of any sort. "You will enter the Great Hall in procession on my signal, once everyone else is seated."

The doors to the Great Hall were then opened, Harry and Parvati quickly stepping out of the way of the waves of students walking in. More than one unbelieving stare passed over them, all of Krum's fan club glaring Hermione's way with pure loathing. Others gaped instead, but Ron didn't even glance at Hermione as he walked past, even when Padma craned her neck back to continue giving her an unbelieving stare.

Once everyone was inside the Great Hall, McGonagall told them to get in line in pairs and prepared to guide them into the Hall. Parvati slung her arm over Harry's, and everyone was ready to move, but McGonagall stopped suddenly and looked at something over Harry's shoulder.

"Mr. Grayson," she chided, eyes narrowing skeptically. "What's the meaning of this?"

Harry didn't know what she meant until he turned around, and found himself face-to-face with a pure-white suit.

"What?" Dick asked innocently from his spot next to Wally West.

* * *

><p>Conner snorted, smirking in amusement at something no one else in the table could hear.<p>

The doors to the Great Hall opened just enough for a person to slip through, and a prim-looking Wally jogged his way towards their table, pretending not to notice all the attention he was gathering.

"Well, so much for that," he mock-sighed, pulling back the chair next to Kaldur's and sitting down with great care for his suit. He looked expectantly between M'gann and Artemis, eyebrows raised. "Who's up for it, then?"

"I'll go," said Artemis, already standing up.

The whole Hall followed her trek to the large oak doors, and a few moments after she disappeared, the doors swung open, the five champions and their companions trailing in after Professor McGonagall. Artemis marched with her arm draped over Dick's, fighting back snickers as Harry, in front of them, was almost dragged along by his date like a show dog. All of the students clapped enthusiastically in their wake.

"Did she actually say you couldn't be Richard's companion for the night?" Kaldur wondered over the noise, eyeing the still-flustered McGonagall reach the top table.

"Nah. I don't think the Professor even knew what to say," Wally admitted, eyeing the menu in front of him hungrily. "Dick took pity on her and told me to get one of the girls instead."

"But why would he ask you to come with him in the first place?"

Conner had completely forgotten that Ron and his date had come to sit at their table, with how gloomily silent the redhead was being. It was obvious his date had been listening to their conversation, though. Wally gave her a confused smile, obviously without a clue as to who she was.

"Just a practical joke."

M'gann and Kaldur shared a weird sort of look Conner didn't feel like deciphering, so he turned his attention to the front of the hall instead.

Dick and Artemis had grabbed seats between Potter's date and Hermione Granger, close to Igor Karkaroff and Percy Weasley, who apparently was serving as stand-in of Mr. Crouch. His eyes narrowed as he tuned out the unwanted voices and-

"-sorry they didn't let Wally accompany you instead." He couldn't see very well from this position, but he thought Hermione looked offended for some reason. Dick's laughter – normal laughter, not the creepy one he used as Robin – filtered over the unwanted noises.

"It's cool, Hermione. I wasn't serious, anyway." He still sounded somewhat disappointed whatever prank he'd planned with Wally hadn't pulled through.

"I'm afraid to say Mr. Crouch isn't well, not well at all. Hasn't been right since the World Cup. Hardly surprising -" Conner frowned, and paid special attention as Weasley informed Harry of things he probably shouldn't be saying in public. Artemis appeared to be talking to Potter's date, but the tilt of her head suggested she was also listening in.

He missed the moment when they gave out instructions, but everyone was suddenly ordering their meals to their own plates. Conner blinked, tuning in to the conversations at the table. He picked the menu off the table, and murmured to M'gann while the rest of the table was distracted picking what to eat.

"Crouch's feeling under the weather. Sounds suspicious."

M'gann nodded, passing on the message to Kaldur, who would eventually pass it on to Wally, if no one was watching. Hopefully he'd get the whole message.

It was moments like these, when they were stuck playing broken phone with each other, Conner really missed their mental link.

As M'gann explained it, the strong magic in the air acted like strong noise whenever she tried to reach out and communicate with them, and it only got worse when the number of wizards and witches present increased. Not only that, but people who were well-versed in mind-magics (whatever those were), such as Albus Dumbledore, could feel a foreign mind and track it back to M'gann. It was too risky, and so they had been getting along without it for the past few months. It was getting frustrating, particularly at times when Dick had to go solo for Tournament activities and they had no way to reach him.

Dinner was over sooner than he'd expected, with Wally only having had three servings of the magically-appearing meals, and they got up so the tables could be cleared away for the dancing part of the night. The band was formed by a group of hairy guys wearing clothing that might have fit in one of the zombie-apocalypse movies Artemis was so fond of, and despite their stage name, "Weird Sisters", Conner couldn't spot a single girl among them.

"Wizards are weird," Conner confided to Wally.

He laughed. "I've been saying that since we got here, man."

The band of hairy men began playing a slow tune, and all the champions along with their dates marched into the brightly lit dance floor. Under the expectant gaze of the whole Hall (and with more than one person snickering at something or another), five pairs of dancers began twirling around the floor.

Despite the height difference, Dick and Artemis were arguably the best dancers on the floor. This was Richard Grayson, son of Bruce Wayne, Conner realized, watching his short friend lead Artemis in wide arcs and twirl her around with ease. Artemis seemed to be enjoying herself, too.

Conner didn't realize he was staring until other dancers began to join, and someone gave a sound of protest next to him.

"Get on with it," Wally was telling Ron, and didn't stop prodding him until he'd grudgingly led his date into the dance. Wally's gaze fell on him next. "You, too. Kaldur and I have the rest covered."

He grunted, but offered his hand to an eager M'gann anyway. Harry hadn't been the only one getting dancing lessons.

* * *

><p>Despite his initial reluctance, Harry had allowed Parvati to keep them in the dance floor for a couple more songs, even the faster one that had him almost stumbling once or twice. But by the end of the third song, he had reached his limit, and felt pretty certain he would start stepping on her feet if he had to keep spinning around like that.<p>

"It's getting a bit crowded," Harry lied, leading Parvati away from the crowd and towards the table he'd seen Ron sitting at earlier. Parvati must have been pleased with his performance, because she followed along without complaint.

Kal Durham was still seated at the table, but there were no Ron or Padma anywhere.

"Hi," he offered the dark-skinned student, and let his eyes trail back to the dance floor. He thought he saw Padma's turquoise-colored robes flicker somewhere amidst the dancers, but lost them from view when he saw Artemis and Dick squirm their way out of the crowd. At some point during the second song, Dick had shed his suit jacket, and now had it slung over his shoulder.

"You really got the hang of it, Harry!" he said, his blue eyes dancing with amusement.

"You both danced beautifully," Parvati responded for him, and Harry nodded along. In truth, he hadn't even thought of glancing at Dick: he'd been preoccupied by his feet the whole time.

"Thanks. Your sister's doing a pretty good job of teaching Weasley on the fly," Artemis teased good-naturedly. She sat down next to them, eyeing the bottle of butterbeer Kal was offering her before taking a good gulp of it.

"Where's Wally?" Dick asked, accepting a bottle himself but not sitting down.

"Out for some air. Durmstrang's Ship looks magnificent under the moonlight."

"Oh." Dick sent a look towards the entrance hall. "Got it. I think I saw Conner and Megan across the Hall, near the top table."

The conversation went right over Harry's head, because he had just spotted Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang at the dance floor, laughing at something one of them had said. He felt the sudden urge to kick something, so he turned away from the scene altogether.

"Do you mind, Harry?"

"What?" He turned to his left to see Parvati already standing. A boy from Beauxbatons had come over to ask her to dance, and she was obviously eager to go. Harry didn't really mind: he was done dancing for the night. "Go ahead. I'm beat." And off she went.

"Very noble of you," a floating butterbeer bottle said in front of him, and Harry gave Kal a wry smile.

"Aren't you going to dance?" he asked, realizing for the first time that the good-looking upper classman had no date to speak of. Harry wouldn't have thought him the type to struggle with those things.

"I'm not much of a dancer." It was as good a reason as any: Harry would have spent the whole ball seated if he hadn't been a Champion.

Hermione dropped by with Victor Krum a while later, but Harry didn't see Ron again until they had both gone back to the dance floor. He sent a sour look towards the dance floor and occupied Artemis's empty seat, since the blonde female had disappeared a short while ago to wander around the hall. Padma, who hadn't looked eager to sit down yet, had left to join her sister and the Beauxbatons boy, who called one of his friends for her easily.

"Can you believe her?" he asked.

Harry frowned, because he hadn't thought Ron had any interest in either of the Patils before this Ball. "She did ask if you minded."

"I'm not talking about her," Ron snapped. "Hermione! What does she think she's doing, fraternizing with the enemy?"

Dick, seated just across the table, coughed very loudly and obviously into his hand. Ron's ears turned red but he continued hotly:

"It's not the same! Durmstrang – everyone knows that school is obsessed with Dark Arts! And he's Karkaroff's student, isn't he?" he added in a lower voice meant for Harry. "You know what Sirius said. He must be trying to get closer to you – get inside information or get near enough to hex you. He knows who you hang around with."

Harry wasn't completely sure of that. In the short time Hermione and Krum had sat at their table, Krum hadn't been interested in anyone but their bushy-haired friend.

"Weasley, you're so ridiculously transparent, you've nearly turned into Wally." Artemis had come back, and she must have gotten something from Ron's ramble that Harry hadn't. It must have upset her, because she completely ignored his offended splutters and spoke to her friends instead: "The top table's empty. Megan and Conner are back in the dance floor. Professor Moody sends his regards to Dick over a bottle of butterbeer. Seriously, that guy's way too paranoid for his own good."

"Did you just say butterbeer?"

If Harry hadn't been facing Dick when he asked that, he wouldn't have caught the predatory look that crossed in his eyes.

"Well, yeah. They can't serve anything stronger in a school dance, I suppose."

But Dick wasn't listening to her anymore. His eyes were somewhere far away, his fingers loosening his baby blue tie absently. "He slipped, huh..."

"What are you guys talking about?" Ron asked, fed up with being ignored.

"Nothing." Dick stood up, mentioning how he didn't think either Megan or Conner had had anything to drink since they began dancing. He grabbed two drinks and rounded the table to head for the dance floor, but paused just as he passed next to them. "Hey, Harry. Be careful around Moody, would you?"

He was gone before anything else could be said, and Harry followed his trek through the Great Hall. He went right past the dance floor and towards the Weasley twins, who had just been brushed off by Ludo Bagman.

"What's his problem?" Ron huffed in disbelief.

Harry didn't know what to say. He had the unsettling feeling he was missing something important.


	7. One Step Forward

_Sorry, sorry, sorry. Haven't abandoned this. I thought I was ready to upload this chapter a few months ago, but then I had to re-write half of it because I didn't like how things had advanced. I was going to start the Second Task and leave this in a cliffhanger, but I decided not to because it's evil. So next chapter has the complete Second Task, and hopefully it'll take less time to upload._

_Please enjoy! And I'm sorry for any mistakes, specially in the last part. Feel free to point them out and I'll try to fix them up ASAP!  
><em>

**Young Justice and the Pentawizard Tournament**

For the Young Justice team, the rest of the winter break was spent doing heavy surveillance and even heavier training. With the Hogwarts students hibernating indoors, most of the fields were up for grabs. Kaldur had found some handy warming spells for their clothes, which made their sessions contain 70% less complaints from the team.

"This is fantastic! Why didn't we think of using magic in our missions before?" Dick had asked, vaulting over the rocks protruding from the thick layers of snow and generally blowing off steam like crazy. A few days after Christmas, they'd gotten clearance to make video-calls home, for which they'd had to travel a couple miles off Hogsmeade. They all felt pretty nostalgic after that, but Dick had been particularly struck after his chat with Bruce. Perhaps he missed the late nights of patrolling rough Gotham, or he just wanted to distract himself from the fact his guardian was a whole ocean away, but he'd been overcompensating during training to the point Wally thought he would catch himself a cold.

"Calm down, man, you're making Artemis look bad," he called, barely managing to duck away from a high kick. "Hey, those heels are hard!"

"Shut it, Wally!" Her punches and kicks were very fierce today. They had agreed on a simple spar, without arrows or super speed, and Wally was finding it a bit hard to uphold his end of the deal. He was feeling a bit sluggish in the cold. "I hate this weather!"

"Training under these conditions will be very useful, though. We don't get too many missions in this weather." With all the unavoidable snow around them, Kaldur had even begun trying to use it in conjunction with his water-bearers. So far, he only had heavy sloshing, but he was quickly getting the handle of it. Sadly, he couldn't manage to hit either Dick or M'gann, who was doing quick loops in the air. It was safe enough to do so, being out of view of the tallest castle towers.

She'd just begun drifting down onto the snow when Wally's world did a ninety-degree turn, and he found himself with a faceful of white.

"Three to one," Artemis said, her voice slightly muffled through the scarf she was re-arranging over her mouth and nose. It was amazing she could move so fast with all those layers of clothing on, but Wally wasn't about to admit that to her. Not after having to spit out bits of frozen dirt along with the snow that got into his mouth.

"That was just mean," Wally sniffed, vibrating his hands through his hair to melt away any snow he couldn't shake off normally. "We've been here for two hours, it's almost time for breakfast in the castle. Can we just call it quits for today?"

It was the last day of winter break, so they would have to cut their training short in the future. Many students used this route to get to the greenhouses for Herbology, a class none of them had been too keen on trying out, so they'd have to relocate to a spot closer to the forbidden forest.

"I agree. Besides, Conner isn't even here."

"I've been wondering about that." The boy wonder had stopped doing somersaults for the moment, it seemed. He was rubbing his gloved hands together in an attempt to warm them up, but it served him right for showing off so blatantly. "Where's the big guy, anyway?"

"He's taking care of the Skrewts with Mr. Hagrid," M'gann piped. "There are fewer of them now, and no one else volunteered to help out through the break."

"Gee, wonder why," Wally murmured to Dick, low enough so that truly-consternated M'gann wouldn't hear. Last he'd heard, the Skrewts only kept getting bigger, meaner, and more dangerous with each passing day. Besides, he was willing to bet Conner just wanted to be around Hagrid so the big softie wouldn't be by himself all break. Wally had heard that his date with Madame Maxime hadn't gone as well as he would have liked.

"I suppose it's about time we head back in," Kaldur conceded, but Wally saw him rub his arms lightly as he put away his bearers.

No one complained as they made their way back towards the castle, leaving a thick trail behind them on the snow. The stone walls of the castle weren't the warmest they could be, but they were heaven after the cold fields and the biting wind they had been forced to endure all day. Saying Wally was jealous of the lazy students slowly filling into the Great Hall would be an understatement. All bundled up in thick coats which almost covered the heads of the ickle first years, slurping noisily away at plates of hot porridge or prodding sleepily at plates of steaming eggs and bacon.

"Breakfast!" Wally ducked into the closest table available, which happened to be Ravenclaw, to begin piling food into an empty plate.

"Don't inhale your food this time, Wally," Dick mocked him, reaching out for a pitcher full of milk.

"Seriously, your hands are blurring out." The rest of the team filed in the end of the table, too hungry to seek out their usual seats further up in the dining hall.

That would explain why some of the nearby Ravenclaw kids were staring at him. But it didn't explain why they also stared at his friends when they thought no one noticed. Whipping his mouth with the back of his hand, Wally gave a wider look around the room. There was murmuring directed their way, shifty looks, and uncomfortable avoiding of gazes when he stared back.

"Anyone else got the feeling something weird's going on?" he asked, eyebrows arching. The situation wasn't discomforting enough for him to lose his appetite, though, so he continued stuffing scrambled eggs into his mouth. Aunt Iris's were better, but the Hogwarts elves weren't half bad at cooking.

"Yeah, someone wrote about us on the paper." There was some rustling of paper as Dick passed over the newspaper he'd found discarded on the seat next to him, displaying the pages for the rest of them to see.

A moving picture of a large building Wally had only seen once sat on the top of the page. It was an old building, though not in any way similar to Hogwart's castle: it resembled one of those pompous universities, with neat archways and a large campus, though it looked like they had just put up new, crystal-clear windows. The shapes of children and teenagers in black cotton sweaters and pants wandered through the main hall without paying mind to the photographer, and even a few birds flew in and out of sight atop a looming clock tower.

"I still don't get how they manage that," he said, brow furrowing. Alan Fletcher's _The Magical Core_ had given him a lot of insight on the metaphysical theories of how magic worked, but there was still so much research to be done about the topic, and nearly no wizards who were interested in doing so. The book hadn't touched on how it could be possible to make a picture, or even a portrait, so life-like and continuously in motion, which was a shame.

"Shut up and actually look at what you're seeing, will you?"

"Touchy," Wally snorted, but let his eyes wander further down anyway. There were six photos there, much smaller than the first one and completely motionless. They were easy to recognize: they had been taken mere months ago, to aid in their cover-up stories for this mission. "Well, that didn't take long at all. We're not even half-way through the Tournament and they're already snooping."

"So they dug up our school records." Fake school records, which Batman had prepared beforehand to give the Houdini Institute's Principal, Jonathan Weiss.

The head of the school was the only one aware of their true identities as junior members of the Justice League, while the rest of the school staff believed them to be Zatara's students. He home-schooled his own daughter, so it wasn't a stretch to say he would have some apprentices, or that they would be the ones chosen to go on a dangerous Tournament that the American Magical Government frowned upon. Had they not been hand-picked and trained by Giovanni Zatara, Honorary Vice-Principal of the Houdini Institute, Honorary Ambassador of Muggle Affairs, and member of the Justice League, they wouldn't have been allowed out of the continent.

American Wizards weren't terribly fond of their British counterparts, which they had used fully to their advantage in this mission. Originally, the plan had been to just pose as students, without going through the troublesome need to set up fake records in the Magical Institute or the Magical Government. The idea had been shot down by Batman so quickly, it was laughable.

"Always have a fail safe," Dick sang in a small whisper, a satisfied smile pulling at his lips.

"It happened a lot sooner than expected, though," Kaldur said, frowning lightly as he ran his fingers over the page. "I thought the Institute would be less liberal with sharing private information."

"Forget about that." Dick's merry expression had fallen into a deep scowl, baby blues reading over the article quickly. Then he added, in a voice low enough for only them to hear: "I thought we were _good_ at this undercover thing."

Unsure about what his friend could mean, Wally finally dropped his fork, leaning over the table to actually read the paper.

**HOUDINI'S RABBLE-ROUSERS**

_By Rita Skeeter_

_The long-standing animosity between the American and British Governments has led to many changes between our magical societies, _writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent_. This year, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has seen the revival of the famous Triwizard Tournament, as has been covered by the Prophet through the last months. Although long-standing tradition dictates it as an European-attending event, a special invitation was extended to one of the most outstanding magical institutes across the pond. The Houdini Institute for Alternative Magic has been lauded for taking on the most difficult cases of magical society and turning them into proper witches and wizards, but perhaps their non-magical methods and their close interaction with muggles have had negative influences over their students._

_Richard Grayson, young thirteen-year-old Champion, has rich magical roots in Europe, so one could trust his education at home to be that of a proper wizard. The same could be said for Megan Morse and Kal Durham, seniors at the Houdini Institute, and only children of outstanding American pure-blood wizard families. It is those students most exposed to the muggle way of life which have shown the most troublesome behavior, both in their own school and overseas._

"_Crock attacked me unprovoked, in public," says Draco Malfoy, a mortified fourth-year student. "Broke my nose, she did, with her bare fists no less! I never thought I'd have to face such brutal muggle violence within the school."_

_This sort of physical violence is highly frowned upon by our educational system, but perhaps things are different in Houdini's Institute. It is nothing to be taken lightly, either: Conner Kent, fellow senior and friend of the Houdini Champion, has more than once shown he possesses incredible strength, up to par with the alarmingly-large Hogwarts' groundkeeper. This reporter has had the misfortune of seeing the troubled child in a fit of rage, and will confess to having feared for her safety for the briefest moments. To know that some of these students are so open to using violence on fellow witches and wizards is alarming, to say the least, but this is not to be held against their Institution. A mental evaluation might not be remiss on young Mr. Kent, who shows exceedingly possessive tendencies not only over his own friends, but also presses them upon Hogwarts students, young Champion Harry Potter in particular._

"I don't have exceedingly possessive tendencies."

"Yo, Con," Wally greeted absently over his shoulder, having heard his friend's heavy steps from the moment he stepped into the Great Hall. His broad-chested friend was in the process of shaking off bits of snow and singed coat off his shoulders, reading the paper over Wally's shoulder and ignoring the looks some of the Hogwart's students were giving him. They had all gotten better at that sort of thing since getting here. "And you sort of do."

"But I'm not mentally unstable," Conner argued.

"That you aren't," Dick agreed, tapping on the following paragraph insistently. "What bothers me isn't Skeeter's psychological evaluation."

_While the methods under which these children have been educated are certainly different from ours, one has to wonder if the Houdini Institute's reasons for accepting the invitation into the Tournament as are innocuous and seeking of magical cooperation as they seem. The unveiled interest each of the foreign students show for the high-standing judges of the Triwizard Tournament is nothing short of unhealthy, if their constant attention towards them is any indication._

_Just last month, the group of Houdini students were overheard talking about surveillance, and young Richard's infatuation with Hogwart's newest staff member, ex-Auror Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, suggest a deep interest in not only the ways our European schools carry themselves, but in the Ministry of Magic and it's legal workings as well._

_It is uncertain, almost impossible, that this interest was born from such young students. Perhaps next time Headmaster Jonathan Weiss wishes to learn about European alternatives in education, he will consider sending a proper envoy, which would be well-received for sure._

"What the hell."

Wally thought his own open mouth was enough of an agreement, but he schooled his expression into an amused face when Dick elbowed him on the side, mindful of the peering students.

"Haha, talk about paranoid," he said lightly, scratching his chin and pushing the newspaper away, perhaps a bit more roughly than he should.

Artemis was gripping her fork hard enough for her knuckles to turn white, Megan was trying and failing to hide her consternation, and Kaldur was pensively staring at a bowl of oatmeal. Conner had his brow furrowed and wasn't eating anything, but his bad-mood front was common enough that no one would suspect it was due to the article. Dick was trying to play it off casual, too, flipping through the remains of the crumbled paper, but Wally could see the tension in his shoulders, and hear the restless tap of his heel against the wooden floor.

"_Infatuation_," he scoffed. "They make it sound like I have a freaking _crush_ on the guy! I don't. If anything, I have a _non_fatuation. Seriously, I could do much better for juvenile crushes than a half-baked pirate."

His tone was playful, but his smirk was practiced. Wally knew what he must really be thinking: the Skeeter woman had ruined everything. She was way off in her conclusion, but she still gave away their interest in the judges. How had she even known? Who could have overheard them talking about their patrols?

They always made sure there was no one around, because Conner could hear someone drop a pin ten miles away if he focused, and he'd never heard any steps or an extra set of lungs or heartbeats while they talked. Besides, Skeeter hadn't been allowed into school grounds since before the winter break. Conner had gotten tired of chasing her and her photographer away from Dick's vicinity (a service their short friend never asked for, but put up with nonetheless), and took his complaint up to Dumbledore himself. As far as they knew, she was banned from the castle and its surrounding area.

The familiar brush of M'gann's mind against his own like a bristled brush made him look up, but the ruffled tendril pulled back after a small shake of Kaldur's head. It was too risky. A school of magic was like a restless river that would easily drown the sound of M'gann's mental streaming, in the best case. It would be easy to fall back on it to solve this little problem, but what they really needed was to figure out what they had done wrong.

Boy, this was going to be even more fun that their morning snow-training. They'd have to step up the game.

* * *

><p>By consensus, the most hated classes right after the winter holidays were those that required students to spend long periods of time outside. The climate was so bad that the Restless Snapdragons Professor Sprout had been growing in the corner of Greenhouse two had grown lethargic. On the upside, the brightly-colored flowers no longer tried to bite off pieces of their coats, or distract them from the task at hand.<p>

But the thick dragon-hide gloves they had to wear for class didn't help their numbing fingers much, so it was always a relief when they could trudge back inside. Hermione was looking forward to getting up to the Common Room so she could finish her Charms essay, which she knew Ron and Harry would try to put off for the weekend. Seeing as she didn't want her best friends to fall behind, though, she had decided to borrow Ron's exploding snap deck without telling him. Stealing that distraction should have been enough to force Ron and Harry to sit down with her and do some advance on their work, but as luck would have it, there was an even bigger, louder distraction on the way to the Gryffindor Tower.

They were almost all the way up to the castle when a mix of bright lights and shrill whistling reached their ears. A couple students were gathered around the clocktower courtyard, where Fred and George Weasley were lighting small fireworks with the tips of their wands. The fuses were kind of short, so they tossed them into the air right away, where they exploded in a shower of lights and complex designs that normal muggle fireworks would have never managed. One of the sparklers even twisted midair to turn into a dove made out of red light, which fluttered over the head of a laughing Richard Grayson before dissolving into a shower of sparks.

"This is amazing!" said Richard, one hand rustling his hair to get rid of whatever could have been left there.

"And against the rules!" Hermione stomped over to the small group of people, which also included Wally West and Kal Durham.

"Hey guys," Wally greeted, but brought his eyes back to the sky to see looping letters drawn in fire. They looked like two M's, but Hermione reflected that they must have been meant to be W's. Despite the small mistake, she had to admit this sort of thing took some complex spell-casting.

"You shouldn't be playing with those," she said. There didn't seem to be many fireworks left: George's arms were loaded with four or five small ones, maybe, and Fred wasn't carrying any.

"We're not playing," said Fred, as he lit up another one and tossed it high above his head. He clicked his tongue when what looked to be some sort of fuzzy flower appeared in the sky. "That was supposed to be a lion."

"Needs more erumpent fluid," decided George after observing the malformed lion head dissolve in the air.

"Well, if you're not just showing off, then what's going on?" Harry asked from beside Hermione. It was Richard who answered, stepping up and sweeping one firework out of George's arms to inspect it.

"Don't sweat it, it's just a demonstration. I thought Fred and George had some amazing ideas, but I wanted to have a look at what they could do with a limited budget before pitching their ideas home." He carefully turned the firework in his hands around, inspecting the short fuse and the crude appearance. They didn't look good enough for selling, nor very safe, so hopefully what they had on them now was all of it. Hermione would loathe seeing the dangerous things in the hands of the first years up in the Gryffindor Tower. "Just curious, but what's this thing's shelf life? Do you think I could send a few home to America?"

"There shouldn't be a problem with it, so long as you keep 'em dry."

"I'd say they could last for a month or two, as they are now. Want to add in a few of our special candies?"

"Write down what each does, and it's a deal."

So they did have more than what they were carrying. For a moment, Hermione seriously considered telling McGonagall, so she could check out their dorm and confiscate all of it. The idea fled quickly, though: as long as they didn't actually hurt anyone, she could try and pretend she didn't know about their secret stacks.

"What are you people talking about?" Ron interrupted, fed up with being ignored. He was always very loud when he was upset, so Hermione had to look around to make sure he hadn't

"Richard's father is a businessman," Kal explained, ("_Dick,_" _Richard corrected beside him_) "he might be interested in making an investment in Fred and George's projects."

"So that's what you wanted to talk to them about on the Ball?" asked Harry, eyebrows arched.

Hermione didn't really know what they were talking about. She hadn't been at their table for most of the Ball, and after that, Ron had been insufferably short-tempered towards her, and only got worse when they touched the topic. They had reached a truce of sorts, though he still became hostile whenever Victor Krum was mentioned, so she knew what this was about. She just didn't know how to fix it, because Ron was being very thick-headed about the whole subject.

"Yep," Richard nodded. He'd pulled out a muggle lighter from his pocket, tapping it against the firework in his hand. "So, could I light the fuse with fire, or is it a strict wand-magic activation?"

George went to explain that for now, a lighter would do, too, but Hermione had stopped listening. The doors to the castle had opened, and she could see Professor McGonagall's tall frame appear under it, accompanied by the limping shape of Professor Moody. She could tell Wally had seen them out of the corner of his eyes, too, and she spotted him giving Richard a little nudge on the side.

"Whoa!" There was a small spark of fire, and the firecracker shot out of Richard's hand with a high whistle.

"Careful!"

"Watch out!"

The whistler went off parallel to the ground, racing just inches above the cobblestone and headed straight for their instructors. Professor Moody tried and failed to set it off with a quick _finite_, but all he got for his trouble was the device homing in on him, twirling around his wooden leg and upwards on his body. Hermione had to squint against the bright curtain of golden sparks surrounding the mismatched man, who bellowed in irritation. No matter how much he cast on the firework, it didn't stop it's rotations until it ran out of juice on its own.

"Mr. Grayson, Messrs. Weasley!" said Professor McGonagall, once the whistler had fallen harmless to the ground, where it was blasted off by a fuming Professor Moody. "I would've thought you had more sense than this! Someone could have gotten hurt, not to mention we have _rules_ against these sort of things!"

"Yeah, about that, _technically_, we just can't light them in the school hallway, and we're outdoors," Wally pointed out, and Hermione saw him bump fists with Richard behind the shorter boy's back. She thought he had a lot of ridiculous bravado, in addition to very tussled hair. She could've sworn he'd been better groomed a moment ago.

Professor McGonagall's mouth was pressed into a thin line as she shot him a stern look, looking like she'd just found a lost Weasley twin.

"Please, Professor," Richard produced a folded piece of paper from his pocket, handing it over to the strict Professor before she could snap at either of them. "I have a permit from Professor Zatara. And for what it's worth, Professor Moody, I'm really sorry about that firework just now."

Hermione suspected Richard didn't feel sorry in the least, for all he oozed charisma with his smile; Professor Moody looked like he didn't believe a word coming out of him either. Their Defense professor had been very testy with the foreigners since that Skeeter woman published the gossipy article about them. Malfoy had tried mocking Crook and Grayson about it, but when it became apparent that none of them cared too much what the papers said of them, the rest of the castle had lost interest in it.

"All seems to be in order." Professor McGonagall didn't sound pleased, and she refused to return the permit to Richard once she was done with it. "I will not take points or assign detention, this time, but any more requests of this sort are to be run through me in the future. Did I make myself clear, Mr. Grayson?"

"Crystal."

The courtyard cleared up surprisingly fast after that, and Hermione drifted away from Ron and Harry to give Wallace and Richard a piece of her mind.

"That was a really dangerous thing you did," she began, and cut herself short when she caught their eyes on her. Lecturing people (particularly Ron and Harry) about doing unnecessarily dangerous things usually didn't get her impish smirks in return.

"I know," said Richard, with that same disturbing chuckle she'd thought she'd heard back on the First Task.

"Totally worth it," Wally shrugged, and both of them were heading down a corridor on the right, following their friends in the direction of their sleeping quarters.

Hermione stood where she was for a moment, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling that the whole group was up to no good. But she had an Arithmancy essay to finish, and whatever that pair was getting into couldn't be more dangerous than setting off fireworks in the middle of a schoolyard.

* * *

><p>If they got nothing out of this little campaign of theirs, at least Dick had confirmation on one front: it was easier to cling to Wally's shoulders when he didn't have his bright yellow suit on. It was a good thing, because the last thing they needed right now was for Dick to fall off and knock over a suit of armor. Wally had already done that, which was why they were in this mess to begin with.<p>

"Right, turn right!" Dick hissed against Wally's ear, and they nearly toppled over at the sharp curve, but Wally pulled through and regained their balance on the last second.

Hogwarts' hallways were wide enough for rivers of children to rush towards their next class without clogging them up, but they weren't nearly large enough for Wally to make clean turns with cargo. It would be a different matter entirely if there weren't suits of armor and other objects of the clanking variety on the end of every hallway, but for now they couldn't go much faster.

Wizards, despite their many strengths in the field of the occult and the wand-waving, weren't very fast on their feet, so even without flight or super speed, Dick and Artemis should be able to outrun any of them. The problem was that the castle had many secret passages the team didn't know about, and they couldn't be sure their pursuer wouldn't take one that beat them to the next landing. Better use Wally's speed to put as much ground between them and Moody, and preferably get back to their sleeping quarters before they could bump into him.

They had researched the reach of Moody's magical eye carefully over the weeks, and while they still didn't have an exact measurement, they had an approximate. After Rita Skeeter's article in the Daily Prophet, Dick had decided it would have to be enough. To their good fortune, the Weasley twins had been quite willing to give their little pyrotechnic show earlier than Dick had anticipated, and it was only a matter of timing the demonstration with Moody's free periods and known castle rounds. Professor McGonagall showing up hadn't been an issue; Dick only had to be a bit more careful aiming.

All in all, their plan had been very simple. Distract Moody's magical eye with a firework, have Wally speed-toss a spare tracking device at the back of Moody's belt, and use a handy Point-Me spell to have a general idea of where the small gadget was.

The bug wasn't functional within Hogwarts grounds, but it was no bigger than a small pebble, and nearly impossible to properly take apart with magic (they'd had Zatara try, but it was a bad job all around if you didn't know what you were trying to dissemble). They would then gamble on the man not noticing the small pebble, not taking off the belt, and doing something incriminatory, all on the same day.

It was a swiftly-made plan; they had never expected to get any results from it, other than further proof that Moody was the most paranoid person to ever walk on Earth and maybe a hint of how to better get the drop on him. And yet here they were, trying to get as much space as possible between them and Moody after having followed the man all the way down to the corridor housing most professors' offices.

"What's that sound?" he asked, suddenly aware of a loud, echoing mechanic sound...

Then, out of nowhere, something shot out of a tapestry to the right, bouncing off the floor and right between Wally's knees.

It wasn't hard to trip at the speed they were going, and Dick landed on a heap on the ground after being propelled over his friend's head. A familiar wailing filled the corridor for a few moments before coming to an abrupt stop.

"Where did this thing come from?" Wally asked in a whisper, quite needlessly, as the short wailing of the golden egg would've given their location away already. He turned the bulky metal egg in his hands as though he'd find the owner's name written on it.

"Another secret passage," said Dick, who was already inspecting the gnomish tapestry hanging inconspicuously on the wall. No one would ever suspect it of spitting golden eggs at innocent passerbies. His eyes darted over the dark passage it revealed, but there was no sign of another champion around.

Loud hollering behind them had him ducking past the tapestry and into the shadows, Wally following his lead on the opposite side of the pathway. Not a moment too late, because just then, Filch the caretaker stomped through the corridor, calling after poltergeists and hissing threats and sweet words to his animal companion. He'd been alerted by the brief wailing of the egg, and who knew who else had been.

Mrs. Norris' ugly mug pushed past the tapestry, her malicious glowing eyes searching the staircase before she noticed Dick and Wally on either side of the entrance. The speedster wiggled his fingers in an attempt at a charming greeting, and while the feline didn't seem too impressed, she did pull back and continue down the corridor.

Filch had never been hard to get past, and once Conner earned them the cat's approval, sneaking around for their night rounds had been laughably easy. Mrs. Norris only liked Conner and only barely tolerated the rest of them, but so long as they weren't messing with school property, she left them well alone.

"Let's go," Dick mouthed, jerking his head towards the top of the narrow staircase before them. He had a general idea of where it led, and that would have to be enough to get them back to their living quarters.

They advanced soundlessly up the flight of stairs, though Dick paused to the sound of rustled paper under his feet. In the time it took him to bend down and pick the worn-out piece of parchment, a map of some sort, Wally managed to trip on the stairs. It wasn't strange, because the castle had fake steps and a few that acted as escalators if you stood on them for too long, but he would have expected Wally to be more careful at a time like this.

"What are you doing?" Dick chided before noticing the strange look Wally was giving the stairs between them.

"I think I found them."

"And what would 'them' be, Mr. West?"

Neither of them had heard the man approaching until the tapestry fluttered on his entry. It was fortunate that Batman had been their Den Mother for so long: it kept the team on their feet for these types of situations.

"The missing steps. I think I can tell them apart now." He said it with so little thought, no one would think it was a lie. Dick felt really proud of his friend. "Oh, hi, Professor Snape! Good evening."

"Sleepless night, sir?" he added himself, nudging the folded parchment into his back pocket before the man could see it.

"Grayson." The Potions Professor both looked and sounded like he was in a bad mood, and the suspicion he regarded them with made them feel like they were stepping into his classroom for the first time. "You must be aware you're out past curfew."

There was a tone of demand in his voice, so Dick improvised.

"I wanted to work a bit on the Tournament's next clue, and Wally tagged along. Time flies and it's about time I worked on it."

"You haven't worked out what the next Task is going to be," Snape deadpanned, unbelieving. The man must not have liked the implication that one of the few students he tolerated had been lazy enough to leave the clue shrouded in mystery for so long. It would be flattering if that was the case, but to be fair, they hadn't found out about the dragons until they were brought into the Castle.

"I wouldn't say that, sir. I know what it's going to be, we were just looking for loopholes and maybe a way to solve the breathing issue."

The professor didn't look satisfied just yet. Was there a reason for his unusually high levels of suspicion?

"Is it that I'm not supposed to help out?" Wally supplied into the silence. "I thought it was fine so long as it wasn't a teacher. I doubt Professor Zatara would even answer if we asked-"

"Turn over your pockets."

Dick shared a look with Wally.

"Come again?"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Mr. West. Mr. Grayson. Turn over your pockets."

"Ok, prof, just a second."

Dick didn't know what the man was hoping to find, but neither of them had brought anything incriminatory for their little outing, so delaying the order would only make them look contrary. There was a soft rustle of clothes behind him as Wally dug into his jacket's pockets, and a softer, closer movement right behind him.

A flowery, clean sort of scent reached Dick's nose, and he had to hold back the urge to twist around and kick whoever was reaching into the back pocket of his jeans. It was an invasion of privacy, but he allowed the invisible champion behind him to extract the piece of parchment from his person. Dick busied himself with pulling out handfuls of folded notes from his front pockets, innocent doodles he passed around with the Team when they were watching over a boring class.

"I think that's the last of it."

A wave of a wand had their belongings, along with anything remaining in their pockets, floating into Snape's reach for inspection. The man's expression darkened with every candy wrapper and piece of lint, but he returned everything once he was done, unsatisfied and wearing a stormy expression.

"Anything we can help with, Professor?" Wally offered. The man could be an ass all he wanted, but he had his loyalties in the right place, and he seemed honestly bothered tonight.

"No, West," the man replied callously. Dark eyes gave them another look-over, before turning sharply towards the tapestry again. "Get back to your dormitories. I will see that you receive proper punishment through your Deputy Headmaster."

They might get told off for not being careful enough, at most. Zatara had been so busy with the League lately, he only had time to check in once or twice a week, so the Team was mostly on their own.

"Yes, Sir."

"Of course, Professor."

The faint thumping of steps down the hallway had the sulky Potions Professor twisting around without even making sure the two teens followed his instructions. He'd want to intercept whoever was crossing the school at this late hour, which just might give them enough time to get away before the owner of the wooden leg caught up to them.

Wordlessly, Dick and Wally reached into the space between them to wrap their hands around scrawny limbs, though it wasn't really necessary.

"Fake step. I'm stuck," invisible-man said, and the junior superheroes hoisted him up and off the stairs. Their invisible companion was light enough that they could practically carry him up the stairs, which was very fortunate considering the rush they were in.

They made it to the upper landing and down a long hallway before any of them spoke again.

"Having fun, Harry?" Dick whispered, fishing around with his free hand to pull off the soft fabric coating Harry's body. Some sort of invisibility cloak, from the looks of it: he could see the dark silver lining on the inside but nothing else, so it looked like they were hanging out with the floating head of the Boy Who Lived.

"Loads," the teen scowled, shaking his arms free of their grips, but keeping up with their quiet steps. He accepted his Golden Egg from Wally with a relieved thank-you, but added a soft accusation: "You weren't working on the clue for the Tournament."

"Nope." They waited to see if Harry said anything to that, but it didn't seem like the teen was going to press any further. Too bad, because now Dick couldn't ask about the mysterious map in return. "Looks like you were, though. We owe you one for the First Task; need a hint?"

Harry visibly hesitated, but shook his head. "I got it." Dick had assumed as much, considering his damp hair and the squeaky-clean smell he carried.

"Attaboy. But if you need anything, just ask. Here's out stop."

They reached a crooked suit of armor, one with a helmet that was slightly caved in and a spear tilted towards the Team's temporary lodging rooms.

"Careful on the way back to Gryffindor Tower, Harry. Watch out for those fake steps." If they weren't already on Moody's radar, one of them would've followed the teen wizard to make sure he made it back safely. With his nifty cloak, though, it was unlikely he'd get caught, unless he had seriously rotten luck.

"Yeah, ok. Thanks again." One of Harry's hands appeared briefly to pull his hood back over his head, and with a subtle glimmer of moonlight, he was gone. Wally and Dick had already started down the hallway when they heard his detached voice again: "Wait. Did you… did you see anyone on your way to the staircase?"

First Snape, and now Harry. Talk about weird suspicions.

"No. Only Mrs. Norris, Snape, and you. Partially. Why?" Harry didn't answer, but they knew he hadn't moved from his spot: he wasn't that quiet when walking. So they waited.

"It's nothing. I just. I thought I saw Mr. Crouch in Snape's office."

Dick raised his eyebrows, and wondered if checking out his Tournament clue was all Harry had been doing tonight.

"Barty Crouch?" he asked, and managed not to sound at all skeptical. They had been quite close to reaching the professors' offices, and they hadn't seen Barty Crouch anywhere; Harry must've been there before them to see the man and be at the staircase at the same time as them. Probably before going to take his bath: the office might be somewhere between Gryffindor Tower and the bathroom he used. "No, we didn't see him. You think that's who Snape was looking for?"

"Maybe... Are you sure you didn't see him?"

"Pretty sure." There was something strange about the whole situation, but they would have to figure it out some other time. "Anything else?"

"Ah, no. But thank you."

His light steps faded in the opposite direction, and they had faded completely by the time they reached the tapestry to their dormitories. Several golden threads near the middle twirled and re-arranged themselves at eye-level to Wally: _Deputy Headmaster says..._

"Yawrood eht nepo."

The tapestry rolled itself up to reveal a sliding piece of wall, and they ducked into the small living room Professor McGonagall had transfigured for them. Everyone else was sleeping soundly, and the briefing could wait until tomorrow morning. A good night of sleep would surely help them assimilate the events of the night better. It had started off somewhat uneventful, but as Dick slid into his bed a few minutes later, had the feeling that they were on the verge of solving who had gotten Harry Potter into the Triwizard Tournament.

_Pentawizard Tournament,_ he corrected himself, and pressed his head more firmly against the pillow.


End file.
